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BV  THE   SAME  AUTHOR. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  WORDS. 

A  POPULAR  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  SCIENCE 
OF  LANGUAGE. 


Second  Edition.    12mo.    Cloth,  $1.25. 


"I  lead  it  with  much  interest,  and  recommended  it  to  the 
young  men  at  Oxford." — Max  Miiller. 

Wm.  C.  Prime,  in  the  New  York  Journal  of  Connnerce  : 
•■  It  win  pay  young  and  old  persons  to  read  ii." 

R.    H.  Stoddard,   in  the  New    York  Mail  and  Evening 
Express:  "  A  book  of  universal  interest  and  sterling  worth. 
.      .      In  its  field  it  is  probably  unrivalled." 

George  Perry,  in  the  Neiu  York  Home  Journal :  "One 
of  the  best  introductions  to  the  study  of  English  in  the  light  of 
the  latest  advances  in  philology  which  we  have  seen." 

The  New  York  Independent  :  "The  author's  style  is  clear, 
strong  and  simple.  He  spends  no  time  in  chasing  illusions  or 
airing  novelties,  and  his  book  is  a  model  in  its  class." 

The  New  York  Graphie  :  "  For  its  scope  it  may  be  said  to 
be  invaluable." 

A.   LOVELL  &  CO.. 

NEW  YORK. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/fortunesofwordslOOgarl 


THE 


Fortunes  of  Words 


LETTERS  TO  A  LADY 


BY 

FEDERICO  GARLANDA,  Ph.D. 

AUTHOR   OF    "the   PHILOSOPHY    OF   WORDS." 


NEW  YORK, 
A.    LOVELL    &    CO. 


fn 


Copyright,  i887i 

MV 

F.  GARLANDA. 


CONTENTS. 


First  Letter. — Introduction — The  Science  of  Lan- 
guage—  Its  Importance — Its  Connection  with 
the  Study  of  Man  and  History —  Words  and 
Things.      .....     Page       i 

Second  Letter. — Etymology  and  History  of  Words — 
Words     and     Their     Life — Linguistic    Maps — 
Beauty    and    Difficulty   of    the   Science  of    Lan- 
guage.       .....     Page     12 

Third  Letter. — Method  and  Facts — Analysis  and 
Comparison  —  Ancient  Etymologists  and  their 
Stumblings — Roots  and  their  Growth — The  Indo- 
European  Languages- — The  Position  of  the  En- 
glish Language — Etymological  Instances.  Page      i8 

Fourth  Letter. —  The  Idea  of  Root — Grimm' s  Law— 
The  Root  ak  and  its  Derivations —  The  Root  pa — 
The  Root  h\\?i— The  Root  WxA.     .  .     Page     31 

Fifth  Letter. — Continuation:  Growth  of  Roots — 
Latin  aud  Anglo-Saxon    Words   in    the   Etiglish 


1C98773 


IV  CONTENTS. 

Language — The  Root  bhar — The  Root  luk — The 
Root  da —  The  Root  tar —  The  Root  yu —  The  Root 
ma — The  Root  \)\\7i.(Sk\ — The  Root  s^aJ^.       Page    44 

Sixth  Letter. — hnportaiice  of  the  Study  of  Roots — 
Roots  and  Dictiotiaries — History  of  Several  Fa- 
miliar Words:  reception  ^«^  capable  ;  pupil  (^/«- 
denf)  r7«c/ pupil  {of  the  eye) ;  charming;  mercy  and 
market;  villain;  valet;  pontiff;  miss  and  magis- 
trate; wig  ^?«^/ perruque.  .  .     Page     51 

Seventh  Letter. — Continuation :  to  escape,  to  dis- 
mantle, artillery,  coquetry,  dupe,  to  arrive,  press  and 
express  ;  gossip  and  commerage  ;  hypocrite  ;  throne, 
angel,  government,  alms. — Changes  in  persoiial  and 
local  flames:  Ingleford,  Cape  Hvarf,  Chateau 
Vert,  Beauchef,  Grand-Pont,  etc. — iXatnes  of 
Ships — Signs  of  Inns.     .  .  .     Page     61 

Eighth  Letter. — Some  inore  Researches  in  the  His- 
toty  and  Cofuiection  of  Familiar  Words. — Tear 
afid  larme  ;  dies,  jour  aftd  Tuesday  ;  chair,  cathedral 
and  session  ;  tile  <i:«(^/ detective  ;  coin  in  English  and 
in  French  ;  aurora  and  combustion  ;  altar  and  ori- 
gin ;  initial  and  count ;  surgeon  and  gardener ; 
arrows  ajtd  intoxication  ;  temple  and  anatomy  ;  tide 
and  demon  ;  timber  and  domestic  :  symposium  ajid 
poison  ;  a  '  buxom '  womati  ;  syllable  and  syllabus  ; 
deluge  and  laundry ;  prose  aJid  verse  ;  hectic  and 
sail  ;  village,  parish   and  diocese  ;  chaperon  ;  com- 


CONTENTS.  V 

plexion ;  beauty  and  bounty ;  reasons  a7id  ra- 
tions. .....     Page    71 

Ninth  Letter. — Conunon  Words  Derived  front 
Local  or  Personal  Names — iVames  of  Trees,  Ani- 
mals, Minerals,  Fabrics  and  Money — Influence  of 
the  Arabs,  the  Flemings,  and  the  Italians — Lum- 
ber, cravat,  spencer,  sandwich,  dollar,  tariff, 
etc.  .....     Page     91 

Tenth  Letter. —  The  New  Method  of  Language- 
Study  and  the  Ways  of  old  Etymologists  com- 
pared— Instances  of  their  vagaries — Skinner, 
Manage,  Blackstone,  etc.  .  .     Page     99 

Eleventh  Letter. — Application  of  Linguistic  to 
Prehistoric  Studies — Primitive  Nature  of  Human 
Tools  and  Dwellings  as  shown  by  their  Names — 
Cooking,  Grinding,  Weaving,  Writing — Books 
and  Book-Making  :  Parchment,  Paper,  etc. —  The 
Limbs  of  our  Body  and  their  Names ;  the  Head^ 
the  Hand,  the  Nose,  the  Eye,  etc.  .     Page  105 

Twelfth  Letter. —  The  Development  of  Ethical 
Feelings  Studied  in  Words — Ethics,  Customs  and 
Morals — Law     and    Right —  Virtue    and     Vice  ; 

•  Malice,  Perversity  and  Depravity — Murder — 
Shame —  Truth —  Verity —  The  Ideas  of  Labor,  Pov- 
erty and  Suffering  in  Latiguage.  .     Page   119 

Thirteenth  Letter. —  The  Color-Sense,  and  the 
Names  of  Colors — Importance  of  this  Subject — 
Linguistic  and  Physiological  Researches.    Page  127 


VI  CONTENTS. 

Fourteenth  Letter. — Names  of  Numbers —  The  Pro- 
gressive Developtnent  of  Calctilation  Studied  in  the 
Names  of  Numbers — Results  frojn  Different  Lan- 
guages.    .....     Page    136 

Fifteenth  Letter.  -  The  Superstitions  of  Latt- 
guage — Familiar  words  whose  fundamental  mean- 
ing is  incompatible  with  our  tenets,  religious, 
moral  or  scientific.  .  .  .     Page  147 

Sixteenth  Letter. —  Why  Words  Change  their 
Meanings — Influence  of  Progress — Religious,  So- 
cial and  Political  Crises — The  Advetit  of  Chris- 
tianity—  The  French  Revolution — Great  Inventions 
and  Discoveries — Infiuence  of  the  Learned  and  of 
the  Unlearned.      ....     Page   153 

Seventeenth  Letter. — Slang — Its  Merits  and 
Demerits — Purity  of  Language ;  Strength  and 
Beauty — How    to    Preserve  and  Promote    Them. 

Page  169 

Eighteenth  Letter — Synonyms. —  When  and  by 
Whom  They  are  Used — Reason  of  their  Use — In- 
adequacy of  Language— International  Synonyjns. 

Page  185 

Nineteenth  Letter. — Latiguage  and  Folkpsychol- 
ogy — Philosophy  of  Latiguage — Comparative  Stud- 
ies—  The  Idea  of  "Love"  in  the  Latin  and  in  the 
English  Language.  .  .  .     Page  199 

Twentieth  Letter. — Conclusio?i.    Page  .    215 


THE 

FORTUNES     OF    WORDS 


FIRST    LETTER. 

Introduction — The  Science  of  Language — Its  Importance — 
Its  Connection  with  the  Study  of  Man  and  History — 
Words  and  Things. 


DEAR  FRIEND— Ever  since  I  began  to 
communicate  with  you  on  the  subject  of 
my  studies,  there  is  no  kind  of  encouragement 
that  I  have  not  received  from  you.  You  arc  so 
earnest,  your  mind,  instinct  with  womanly  love- 
liness, is  so  eager  and  open  to  wide  and  noble 
sympathies,  that  your  very  listening  is  an  in- 
spiration. I  never  can  think  of  you  without 
my  mind  going  back  to  the  great  women  of  the 
Renaissance,  who  could  hold  their  own  in  dis- 
cussing Greek  philosophy  or  mathematics  with 
the  greatest  savants  of  the  time,  and  yet  did 
not  lose  one  point  of  that  delicacy  and  sweet- 
ness, of  that  instinctive  love  for  beautiful  and 


2  THE  FORTU.VES  OF    WORDS.  " 

graceful  things,  which  arc  the  crowning  charms 
of  womanhood.  I  am  sure  you  will  not  bear 
me  any  grudge  if  I  try  to  put  on  paper,  with  as 
much  order  as  will  be  possible,  some  of  those  re- 
sults of  the  science  of  language  about  which  we 
have  talked  so  often,  and  address  these  letters  to 
you.  On  my  part  it  is  simply  a  debt  of  grati- 
tude. It  was  in  my  conversations  with  you 
that  the  idea  of  these  letters  originated.  Let, 
then,  the  fruit  go  back  to  her  who  had  so  large 
a  part  in  the  planting  of  the  tree. 

It  would  be  altogether  superfluous  to  dis- 
course to  you  upon  the  importance  of  these 
studies.  They  have  always  been  very  impor- 
tant, since  studies  in  words  are,  after  all,  studies 
in  things.  Besides,  they  sharpen  one's  mind 
and  accustom  it  to  observation,  comparison,  fine 
analysis  and  subtle  discrimination.  In  the  words 
of  Scaliger,  the  great  antiquarian  and  philolo- 
gist, "  the  sifting  of  these  subtleties,  although  it 
is  of  no  use  to  make  machines  for  grinding  corn, 
frees  the  mind  from  the  rust  of  ignorance,  and 
sharpens  it  for  other  matters."  But  now,  in  the 
light  of  modern  researches  and  methods,  it  is  a 
new  world  entirely  that  opens  before  us. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  3 

He  who  follows,  even  superficially,  the  move- 
ment of  modern  studies  and  compares  it  with 
that  of  the  last  century,  cannot  fail  to  notice  a 
wide  difference.  Philosophizing  was  the  prom- 
inent characteristic  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. They  discussed  and  dreamed  about  man- 
kind, religion,  law,  language  and  the  universe. 
Systems  were  evolved  out  of  general  principles 
which  too  often  had  no  foundation  except  in 
the  fancies  of  their  authors.  To-day,  on  the 
contrary,  the  tendencies  of  all  science  are  strict- 
ly historical.  We  have  grown  sceptical  and 
diffident  of  philosophical  systems.  We  do  not 
care  so  much  to  listen  to  abstract  and  subject- 
ive theories  about  the  nature  of  society,  of  law, 
of  religion,  of  the  world,  as  we  strive  to  know 
how  these  things  were  formed,  where  they  come 
from,  how  they  grow  and  live.  We  have  a  feel- 
ing that  only  by  being  able  to  account  for  their 
origin  and  growth,  we  may  be  able  at  all  to 
learn  their  essence.  Hence  that  spirit  of  ob- 
servation and  research  which,  as  it  was  aptly 
remarked,  has  made  of  history  a  science  and  of 
all  science  a  history.  It  was  Gcethe,  I  think, 
who    said    that    the    day    would    come    when 


4  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

we  would  not  ask  the  ox  ivJiy  it  has  its  horns, 
but  hoiv  it  has  come  to  have  them.  That  time, 
we  may  say,  has  come.  New  sciences  spring  up, 
all  in  accordance  with  this  new  spirit :  geology, 
palaeontology,  embryology,  comparative  anat- 
oni}',  all  aim  to  give  us  a  history  of  life  in  the 
world.  We  all  have  an  impression  that  there 
is  a  universal  and  lawful  continuity  in  all  the 
phenomena  of  life,  in  the  biological  as  well  as 
in  the  moral  world.  The  adage  of  the  ancients 
that  natura  non  facit  saltns  never  was  so  thor- 
oughly understood  as  it  is  nowadays.  Now, 
more  than  ever,  we  are  aware  of  the  absolute 
dependence  of  to-day  on  the  yesterday ;  and 
(let  me  make  this  remark  in  passing)  they  do 
not  read  well  the  spirit  of  their  age  who,  for 
whatever  cause  and  in  whatever  field,  preach 
revolution  instead  of  insisting  on  a  continuous 
gradual  development. 

Whenever  a  crisis  happens  in  the  commercial 
or  political  world,  the  first  thing  we  require  is 
to  investigate  Jioiv  it  grew,  what  brought  it 
about.  A  physician  is  not  satisfied  with  his 
diagnosis  if  he  does  not  go  back  for  years  and 
generations    and    hunt    out    all    that     can    be 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  5 

known  about  the  preceding  maladies  of  his  pa- 
tient, his  father,  mother  and  ancestors.  This 
feehng  that  to  know  one  tiling  truly  implies  to 
know  its  origin  is  so  general,  that  we  have 
changed  the  sense  of  the  word  '  etymology.' 
*  Etymology'  means  exactly  the  exposition  or 
explanation  of  the  true  meaning  of  words 
{etymos,  true)  ;  but  we  have  bent  it  to  mean 
the  '  origin  of  words.'  In  fact,  if  the  '  true 
meaning '  of  a  word  and  the  '  origin  '  of  a 
word  are  not  exactly  convertible  terms,  the  lat- 
ter is  always  a  good  clue  to  the  former.  We 
must  add,  however,  that  modern  philology  is 
no  longer  satisfied  with  the  origin  of  words 
alone  ;  it  wants  to  know  their  entire  history. 

This  way  of  looking  at  the  world  Jiistorically 
is  the  most  far-reaching  achievement  of  the 
modern  mind.  Whether  we  shut  our  eyes  or 
keep  them  open,  there  is  written  on  everything 
'why?'  but  the  'why'  cannot  be  answered 
if  the  'liow?'  and  'whence?'  are  not  known. 
The  philosopher  says:  'All  that  is,  is,'  but 
the  proposition,  '  all  that  is,  was  not,'  or  at 
least,  'all  that  is,  was  not  as  it  is,'  is  equally 
true.     Hence  the  question  which  suggests  itself 


6  THE   FORTUNES  OF  IVORDS. 

at  all  moments  of  our  life  :  '  How  has  it  come 
to  be  so  ?  '  The  trees  and  flowers  which  adorn 
your  garden  did  not  exist  once,  nor  did  their 
ancestors  have  the  same  shapes  and  colors; 
Jiozv  did  they  become  what  they  are?  Your 
beautiful  horse,  of  which  you  are  so  fond  and 
so  proud,  would  find  in  his  pedigree  strange 
and  unlooked-for  relations.  So  would  the  dog 
which  lies  at  your  feet  and  looks  up  at  you  with 
eyes  so  mild  and  loving,  forgetful  entirely  of  the 
primitive  fierce  savagery  of  his  kin.  The  laws 
which  govern  us,  this  world  of  society  with 
which  we  trammel  and  fetter  each  other  on  all 
sides,  have  not  always  been  what  they  are  ; 
what  were  they,  then  ?     How  did  they  change  ? 

Indeed,  we  have  only  to  reflect,  to  lift  our- 
selves a  moment  above  the  material  and  com- 
mon-place pursuits  of  our  dull  lives,  to  have  the 
historical  problem   facing  us  from   everywhere. 

We  do  generally  concern  ourselves  with  the 
future  far  more  than  with  the  past ;  which,  after 
all,  is  a  good  and  sensible  thing.  But  we  should 
not  forget  that  the  future  is  but  a  continuation 
or  a  consequence  of  the  present,  and  the  present 
is  in   its  turn   both  a  continuation  and  a  conse- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  7 

quence  of  the  past.  We  do  not  know  what  a 
man  is  going  to  do  if  we  have  not  seen  him  at 
work  before.  We  cannot  tell  how  high  a  water 
course  is  going  to  run  uphill  if  we  do  not  know 
from  what  height  it  fell.  In  the  physical  as 
well  as  in  the  moral  world,  the  key  to  the  future 
is  in  the  past. 

Concerning  the  enormous  problem  of  the 
origin  of  life,  I  heard  once  a  lecturer  go  off  on 
a  sentence  like  this  :  "  I  do  not  care  to  know 
the  preface  to  my  cradle,  but  I  would  like  to 
know  the  appendix  to  my  grave."  If  was  re- 
ceived with  clamorous  applause,  as  such  oxy- 
morons generally  are  ;  but  it  was  mere  rhetoric 
after  all.  In  his  own  clumsy  metaphor,  if  we 
could  read  the  preface  to  our  cradle,  the  ap- 
pendix to  our  grave  would  read  by  itself. 

It  is  this  universality  and  necessity  of  the 
historical  problem  that  gives  the  new  science 
of  language  an  importance  and  a  reach  inferior 
to  no  other  science.  The  whole  man,  his  mind, 
his  heart,  his  understanding,  his  beliefs,  his 
passions,  all  that  he  is  and  has  been,  is  to  be 
found  in  language.  Let  us  be  more  exact ;  not 
the  whole  man  is  in  language,  because  a  great 


8  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

many  things  there  are  in  ourselves  which  are  not 
known,  or  but  dimly  known,  to  ourselves,  which, 
therefore,  are  not  expressed  by  words.  But  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  all  that  part  of  man  which 
is  known  to  man,  is  to  be  found  in  language. 
In  language,  then,  we  have  one  of  the  greatest, 
the  most  direct,  the  most  intimate  means  for 
the  study  of  man. 

By  tracing  words  back  to  their  primitive 
formation  and  meaning,  we  may  learn  how 
some  deep  and  most  complex  ideas  embodied 
in  our  words  were  first  formed  and  conceived. 
All  the  words  pertaining  to  the  life  of  the  soul 
can,  thus  analyzed,  throw  floods  of  light  on  the 
history  of  our  moral  conceptions.  On  the 
other  hand,  by  following  words  downward  from 
their  origin  to  their  present  use,  we  can  watch 
the  human  mind  in  its  action,  surprise  it  in  its 
inmost  ways  of  working  ;  to  say  nothing  of  the 
great  historical,  ethnographical  and  literary 
problems  which  are  connected  with  and  en- 
lightened by  such  investigations.  Even  putting 
the  practical  utility  of  these  studies  aside,  what 
a  satisfaction  to  have  before  the  eyes  of  our 
mind  the  linguistic  map  of  the  civilized  world  ; 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  9 

to  see  the  mainsprings  from  which  the  streams 
of  modern  speeches  flow ;  to  follow  them  step 
by  step,  when  they  cross  or  diverge,  widen  or 
narrow,  merge  into  others  or  disappear.  What 
a  satisfaction  for  the  geologist  to  look  at  a  hill 
and  to  be  able  to  tell  in  what  age  of  the  earth 
and  how  it  was  formed,  what  materials  it  is 
made  of,  what  kind  of  vegetation  it  was  covered 
with,  what  animals  sought  shelter  in  its  dens 
or  lay  under  the  shade  of  its  trees  !  The  same 
does  the  glottologist  with  words.  (Allow  me  to 
introduce  into  English  this  word,  which  is  bet- 
ter and  not  so  misleading  as  '  linguist.'  Linguist 
should  be  called  he  who  knows  and  speaks 
several  languages  ;  '  glottologist '  is  the  student 
of  the  science  of  language.  There  are  linguists 
who  speak  half  a  dozen  languages  or  more,  but 
do  not  know  anything  about  the  science  of 
language.  The  glottologist  does  not  care  to 
learn  to  speak  several  languages  ;  what  he  aims 
at,  is  to  see  into  the  grammatical  structure  and 
word-formation  of  as  many  languages  as  he  can 
get  hold  of.)  With  a  fragmentary  and  well- 
worn  word,  which,  to  the  untrained,  means  very 
little,  the  glottologist  goes  back  centuries  and 


\ 
\ 


10  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

centuries,  to  the  first  form  of  that  word  ;  then 
he  follows  it  in  all  its  metamorphoses  and 
derivations ;  traces  out  its  connection  with 
hundreds  of  other  words  in  different  languages, 
its  original  meaning  and  the  various  other 
meanings  w^ith  which  it  has  been  clothed  in  its 
centennial  life. 

You  read  in  your  Bible  (Deut.  xxi.,  4),  "  And 
the  elders  of  that  city  shall  bring  down  the 
heifer  unto  a  rough  valley,  which  is  neither 
cared  nor  sown." 

If  you  ask  what  this  eared  is,  grammarians 
will  tell  you  that  it  is  the  past  form  of  an  obso- 
lete verb,  to  ear,  which  means  '  to  plough.'  Ob- 
solete is  about  all  that  they  can  tell  you.  If  you 
take  a  Greek  or  Roman  coin  to  an  antiquarian, 
and  he  tells  you  that  it  is  an  ancient  coin,  an 
obsolete  coin,  no  longer  accepted  in  common 
currency,  would  you  be  satisfied?  Still,  it  is 
astonishing  how  many  persons  are  ready  to 
shut  their  dictionary  and  declare  "  they  know 
all  about  it  "  when  they  have  learnt  that  a 
word  is  "obsolete."  A  glottologist  will  tell 
you  that  this  obsolete  verb  '  to  ear,'  was  in 
Middle   English  erien,   from  the  Anglo-Saxon 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  il 

erian,  which  is  to  be  referred  to  an  Indo- 
European  root  '  ar,'  meaning  '  to  plough.' 
From  this  same  root  we  have  the  Greek  verb 
ar-oo,  to  plough,  the  Latin  ar-arc,  and  ar-a-trtiiii, 
the  plough  ;  our  adjective  ar-able,  that  can  be 
ploughed,  and  very  likely  the  substantive  earth, 
the  'tilled.' 

Nor  are  these  researches  without  a  practi- 
cal bearing.  Imagine  a  student  who  under- 
takes to  learn  a  foreign  language.  If  he  has 
not  even  the  slightest  training  in  comparative 
philology,  he  is  obliged  to  learn  almost  all 
words  one  by  one,  mechanically,  as  so  many 
algebraic  signs.  By  the  light  of  the  science  of 
language,  on  the  contrary,  he  can  recognize  in 
each  word  a  member  of  a  certain  family,  a 
blossom,  a  leaf,  a  branch,  which  he  can  easily 
refer  to  the  trunk  with  which  he  is  familiar. 


SECOND  LETTER. 

Etymology  and  History  of  Words — Words  and  their  Life — 
Linguistic  Maps — Beauty  and  Difficulty  of  the  Science  of 
Language. 


I  HAVE  no  intention  to  follow  rigorously,  in 
our  conversations,  any  logical  order,  because 
I  know  that  you  would  not  like  it.  In  your 
eagerness  for  all  intellectual  food,  you  retain  an 
amiable,  almost,  I  would  say,  pert  independ- 
ence of  spirit,  which  is  so  thoroughly  feminine, 
and  makes  you  so  lovely  even  in  your  outbursts 
of  impatience.  We  shall  go  on  leisurely,  let- 
ting the  subject  itself  lead  us  onward,  rather 
than  break  it  up  and  enchase  it  into  a  prefixed 
frame  ;  just  as  we  did  that  evening  on  the 
piazza,  in  your  villa  by  the  sea,  while  the  skies 
were  aglow  with  the  glories  of  sunset,  the  wind 
was  sighing  through  the  pine-trees,  and  the 
breakers  were  dashing  their  foam  at  our  feet, 
surging  and  chanting  all  the  while  their  eternal 
monotone  ;  do  you  remember  ?     I    hope   you 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  13 

have  not  forgotten  those  deh'ghtful  hours ;  / 
never  will.  The  breakers  were  ever  coming, 
and  breaking,  and  roaring,  and  seemed  to  sing: 
*'  We  are  strong,  strong,  strong !  We  come 
from  afar,  far,  far  !  "  The  lengthening  shadows 
were  bending  over  them,  and  all  Nature  seemed 
to  blend  and  merge  in  that  immense  embrace. 
There  was  a  pause  in  our  conversation,  as  hap- 
pens. You  gazed  awhile  over  the  dark  waters, 
thoughtfully,  and  then  you  said,  half  shudder- 
ing, and  drawing  closer  your  wraps  (that  pretty 
red  shawl,  so  lovely  on  your  white  dress)  :  "  I 
wonder  where  they  come  from  !  "  The  mood 
of  the  hour  was  so  serious  that  I  ventured  upon 
a  joke.  "  Where  they  come  from  ?  that's  the 
business  of  etymology."  And  you,  sharply,  "  O, 
you  horrid  pedant !  "  Still,  I  know  it  did  not 
displease  you  very  much,  as  you  turned  soon, 
laughing,  and  said  :     "  Go  on,  please  !  " 

Why  do  I  thus  prattle  on,  away  from  my  sub- 
ject ?  In  truth,  I  don't  know,  unless  it  is 
because  one  likes  to  go  over  as  often  as  possi- 
ble the  hours  that  one  did  enjoy  the  best.  In 
the  future,  however,  I  will  be  more  severe  with 
myself  and  keep  closer  to  our  subject. 


14  THE   FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

I  mentioned  that  we  must  not  be  satisfied 
with  knowing  the  origin  of  words,  but  we 
must  investigate  their  whole  history.  Their 
origin,  important  as  it  is,  is  only  the  first  link 
of  the  chain.  But  from  that  distant  point, 
how  did  words  travel  down  to  our  days? 
Through  what  metamorphoses  of  sound  and 
meaning  did  they  assume  their  present  forms 
and  significations  ?  It  is  important  to  know 
the  fountain-head  of  a  river,  but  to  have  a  full 
knowledge  of  the  river  itself,  we  must  follow  it 
down  its  course,  see  by  what  affluents  its  waters 
are  swollen,  through  what  lands  it  runs,  down 
what  falls  it  leaps,  into  what  sea  it  pours  and 
merges.  This  is  not  an  idle  comparison.  It  is 
exactly  what  glottology  aims  at :  to  present, 
as  in  a  clear  map,  the  course  of  languages  ; 
to  show  us  whence  they  start,  whither  they 
run,  how  they  mingle  and  separate,  how  they 
live  and  die. 

Glottology,  aided  by  ethnology  and  palaeon- 
tology, has  carried  the  lamp  of  investigation 
far  back  into  ages  where  all  history  is  silent.  In 
its  light,  the  most  sequestered  valleys,  the  most 
insignificant  villages  have  given  up  their  secrets  • 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  15 

"  We  were,"  they  say,  "the  abode  of  such  and 
such  a  race  ;  such  and  such  a  family  of  men  lived 
here  and  left  their  names  with  us  before  other 
families  came  which  drove  them  away,  to  be 
driven  in  their  turn  by  others."  The  brooks, 
the  cliffs,  the  mountains,  tell  us,  by  their  names, 
the  story  of  races,  of  whom  we  have  scarcely 
any  other  memory  left  ;  while  in  the  arid  col- 
lections of  words,  where,  as  in  faded  herbaria, 
are  recorded  and  classified  the  spoils  of  lan- 
guages long  since  dead,  we  can  read  the  earliest 
history  of  our  own  race  and  the  civilization  of 
an  age  so  remote  that,  in  comparison,  Rome 
and  Greece  seem  to  become  our  contemporaries. 
To  what  does  the  antiquity  of  Caesar  and  Cicero 
dwindle  away,  since  we  can  go  back  to  a  time 
when  the  remote  forefathers  of  those  who  were 
to  people  Italy  and  subsequently  to  found 
Rome,  were  still  pasturing  their  flocks  in  the 
high  plains  of  Asia?  Indeed,  the  philological 
and  archaeological  researches  of  this  century 
have  so  lengthened  the  domain  of  history  that 
they  seem  to  have  altered  our  perspective  of 
time,  and  made  very  near  to  us  that  which  once 
appeared    to  be  so    far  away.     To  one  who  is 


l6  THE   FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

familiar  with  the  Vedas,  Virgil  and  Horace 
seem  to  belong  to  modern  literature.  It  happens 
with  time,  after  all,  as  it  happens  with  space. 
The  ideas  of  farness  and  nearness  depend  en- 
tirely on  habit.  In  Europe  it  seems  quite  a 
journey  to  go  from  Paris  to  Rome,  and  a  good 
deal  of  preparation  and  leave-taking  is  gone 
through  before  setting  out.  The  travelled  Am- 
erican, familiar  with  the  distances  of  a  bound- 
less continent,  crosses  the  ocean  as  one  would 
go  to  his  country-seat,  and  does  not  think  much 
of  taking  a  trip  to  Australia. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  science  of  language,  itself 
an  historical  science,  is  one  of  the  most  valid 
auxiliaries  of  history.  Those  who  think  of  it 
as  a  dry,  uninteresting  study  of  roots  with  a 
sleepy  accompaniment  of  declensions  and  con- 
jugations, do  not  understand  it  aright ;  or  if 
they  have  got  some  knowledge  of  it,  they  fail 
to  see  the  great  green   fields  which  it  leads  to. 

One  might,  however,  deceive  one's  self  by 
thinking  that  because  the  results  and  prospects 
of  the  science  of  language  are  grand  and  alluring, 
their  pursuit  also  is  always  delightful,  easy  and 
entertaining.    We  must  remember  that  the  Hill 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  i? 

of  Science  has  at  the  top  a  green  refreshing 
plain,  lighted  by  the  sun  of  Truth  and  sweet 
to  rest  upon.  But  its  slopes  are  awfully  steep, 
thick  with  stones  and  thorns,  and  altogether 
such  that  years  of  hard  work  and  good  will  and 
mutual  help  are  required  to  advance  a  few  steps. 
The  science  of  language  is  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  Rather,  if  we  look  back  to  the  way  in 
which  even  the  greatest  minds,  when  dealing 
with  language,  went  stumbling  around,  down  to 
the  present  century,  we  must  conclude  that  its 
path  is  even  harder  than  others,  and  thick  with 
difficulties,  snares  and  pitfalls. 


THIRD   LETTER. 

Method  and  Facts — Analysis  and  Comparison — Ancient  Ety- 
mologists and  their  Stumblings — Roots  and  their  Growth 
— The  Indo-European  Languages — The  Position  of  the 
English  Language — Etymological  Instances. 


IN  the  Science  of  Language,  as  in  all  sci- 
ence, to  reach  a  positive  result  was  not 
possible  before  a  method  was  found.  In  science, 
as  well  as  in  life,  method  is  everything.  'Method' 
is  "the  way  aiter "  {meid,  after;  /lodds,  way), 
the  way  of  following  up  a  clue,  an  idea,  orderly, 
clearly,  consistently,  without  jerks  or  jumps 
or  deviations.  It  is  the  thread  out  of  the  laby- 
rinth, without  which  even  the  most  willing,  the 
most  skilful  and  keen-eyed,  will  go  round  and 
round,  tiring  themselves,  tearing  their  own  flesh 
and  bleeding,  to   find  themselves,  at  last,  ex- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  1 9 

hausted    and    powerless,    there   whence    they 
started. 

A  method  for  the  science  of  language  was 
found  when  it  was  at  last  proposed  to  apply  to 
it  the  great  principle  of  common-sense,  namely 
to  proceed  from  what  we  know  to  what  we  do 
not  know  ;  to  begin  to  study  the  facts  which 
lie  around  us  before  devising  systems  to  explain 
them.  Quite  simple,  you  will  say  ;  why  did 
they  not  apply  it  at  the  very  start  ?  Yes,  as 
simple  as  the  egg  of  Columbus,  and  equally 
difficult.  To  poor,  awkward,  human  minds, 
are  not  things  most  simple  the  most  dif^cult  ? 
Have  they  not  always  been  so  ?  In  the 
political  field,  for  instance,  what  is  more 
simple  and  at  the  same  time  more  useful  than 
the  idea  that  neighboring  states  should  live  at 
peace  and  help  each  other  to  increase  their 
wealth  and  happiness,  rather  than  live  like  cats 
and  dogs  and  give  the  best  strength  of  their 
minds  and  bodies  to  thoughts  and  works  of 
mutual  destruction  ?  Still  centuries  elapsed,  full 
of  unspeakable  misery,  hatred  and  wars,  until, 
about   one   hundred   years  ago,  to  a   few  good 


20  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

bourgeois  the  idea  occurred  that  perhaps  an  ar- 
rangement could  be  devised  by  means  of  which 
some  states  might  live  side  by  side  in  peace, 
and  some  good  sense  be  brought  also  into  the 
transaction  of  international  affairs.  Hence, 
from  this  simple  and  very  plain  idea,  the  con- 
federation of  the  United  States  of  North 
America,  the  grandest  phenomenon  in  the 
political  history  of  the  world. 

And  in  social  life,  for  instance,  what  would 
be  more  simple  than  to  do  away  with  many 
of  the  useless,  ridiculous,  tedious  regulations 
which  embitter,  and  take  away  nine-tenths 
of  the  sweetness  and  real,  soul-felt  enjoy- 
ment of  social  intercourse,  which  are  a  nui- 
sance to  the  thousands,  a  subject  of  laughter 
and  ennui  to  the  clever,  an  advantage  to 
nobody?  Still,  far  from  getting  rid  of  them, 
we  seem  bound  to  increase  them  every  year, 
and  to  get  farther  and  farther  from  that  '  plain 
living,'  which  is  the  inseparable  companion  of 
'  high  thinking.' 

We  must  not  wonder,  then,  much  less  feel 
tempted    to   look  down   on    our  predecessors, 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  2i 

because  they  stumbled  long  in  their  way  in  the 
pursuit  of  science,  and  did  not  see  the  clue 
which  lay  quite  at  their  feet.  At  the  same  time, 
it  will  not  be  useless  to  look  at  their  method 
and  some  of  their  mistakes.  Their  mistakes 
will  at  least  teach  us  how  to  avoid  them,  and 
their  method,  with  its  necessary  results,  will  be 
a  good  test  for  our  own. 

But,  first,  let  me  state  briefly  what  the  new 
method  is,  and  which  are  the  new  instru- 
ments of  research  that  are  put  at  our  disposi- 
tion. 

It  is  necessary,  as  I  have  just  mentioned,  to 
start  from  the  study  of  facts.  The  facts  to  be 
studied  are  words  in  all  their  forms,  namely, 
vocabularies  and  grammars.  The  method  is 
analytical  and  historico-comparative.  When 
we  take  up  a  word,  we  must  not  only  consider 
its  present  form  ;  in  many  cases  nothing  could 
be  made  out  of  it.  We  must  investigate 
through  what  successive  forms  it  has  gone,  and, 
secondly,  we  must  compare  it  with  cognate 
words  in  cognate  languages.  We  must  not 
imagine  intermediate  forms  ;  we  must  really  go 


2  2  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

to  the  historical  documents  of  languages,  and 
collect  and  compare  the  forms  which  are  found 
to  exist  or  to  have  existed.  There  is  an  abyss 
between  the  old  school,  if  they  deserve  such  a 
name,  of  etymologists  and  the  modern  meth- 
ods. The  former,  as  a  rule,  did  not  trouble 
themselves  with  researches  of  this  kind  ;  when 
they  wanted  to  know  the  etymology  of  a  word, 
they  looked  around  for  another  word  which 
had  with  it  some  affinity  cither  in  sound  or 
meaning,  and  having  once  assumed  that  this 
was  the  original  word,  they  simply  imagined 
the  intermediate  forms  which  had  to  serve  as 
links  between  that  and  the  supposed  deriva- 
tion. 

The  chief  results  strictly  linguistical  obtained 
by  the  new  science  may  be  reduced  to  two  : 
one  concerns  the  words  in  themselves,  the  other 
languages  in  general.  First,  it  has  demon- 
strated that  every  word  has  at  its  kernel,  as  its 
essential  element,  a  root,  that  is  to  say  a  sound 
with  a  general  indefinite  meaning.  These 
primitive  sounds  are  not  many,  and  from  them 
all  our  words  are  formed.     In  the  second  place. 


THE   FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  23 

it  has  been  able  to  give  a  classification  of  lan- 
guages, at  least  of  the  most  important  of  them. 
A  great  result  this,  indeed,  if  we  consider  that 
rational  classification  is  the  final  scope  and 
crown  of  all  science  ;  a  result  which  sums  up 
all  the  work  done  at  the  same  time  that  it  lays 
down  the  plan  and  ppints  the  way  for  the  work 
to  come. 

I  will  not  repeat  here  the  general  classification 
of  languages.  I  have  given  it,  as  I  am  sure  you 
remember,  in  the  "  Philosophy  of  Words,"  and, 
at  any  rate,  it  can  be  found  in  every  book  on 
the  science  of  language.  But  I  think  it  worth 
our  while  to  exhibit  briefly  the  classification  of 
the  Indo-European  languages,  because  into  this 
field  chiefly  our  subsequent  investigations  will 
proceed. 

The  Indo-European  or  Aryan  languages  com- 
prehend the  most  important  languages  spoken 
nowadays  in  Asia,  Europe,  and  America,  by  the 
most  civilized  peoples.  They  are  divided  into 
seven  great  groups  : 

1.  Sanskrit,      ) 

\      Eastern  group.     Asia. 

2.  Iranic,  ( 


24 


THE   FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 


3.  Hellenic, 

4.  Italic, 

5.  Slavonic, 

6.  Teutonic, 

7.  Celtic. 


Western  group. 
Europe  and  America. 


It  appears  that  all  of  Jhese  groups  descend 
from  one  common  mother  language,  now  ex- 
tinct, which  was  spoken  in  the  high  plains  of 
Central  Asia,  from  which  the  people  who  spoke 
these  several  languages  separated  and  went 
upon  their  migrations,  two  branches  eastward, 
and  five  westward.  These  separations  did  not 
take  place  all  at  one  time,  but  first  one  branch 
split  and  then  another,  and  another,  the  latter 
pressing  the  former  onward,  farther  from  the 
common  stock. 

These  seven  languages  then  are  sisters,  or 
rather  they  were,  as  all  of  them  are  now  dead  ; 
and  the  languages  that  sprang  from  them  are 
also  cognate,  although  their  kinship  is  of 
a  more  remote  degree  and  less  easy  to  de- 
tect. 

If  we  care  to  see  at  a  glance  what  languages 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 


25 


are   derived    from   each  of  them,  the  following 
diagram  will  help  us  : 


f  Indie, 


Iranic, 


Celtic, 


Italic, 


Hellenic, 


Letto-Slavic, 


{.  Vedic  Sanskrit, 

-j  Modern  Sanskrit, 

(  Pali  and  Prakrit  (spoken  in  India). 

Zend, 

Cuneiform  Inscriptions, 

Persian. 


Teutonic, 


j  Cymric, 
\  Gaelic. 


(  Oscan, 
\  Latin— 
/  Umbrian, 


Neo-Latin 
Languages. 


Italian, 

French, 

Spanish, 
\  Portuguese, 
I  Provencal, 
I  Walachian, 
1^  Rumansch. 


j  Greek  (four  dialects), 
(  Modern  Greek. 

Old  Prussian, 
Ecclesiastical  Slavonic, 
Russian  Language. 

(  Old  High  German, 
High  German,  -'  Middle  High  German, 
(  Modern  High  German. 

r  Gothic, 

I  Anglo-Saxon  (English), 
Low  German,   -J  Old  Du'ch, 
I  Old  Frisian, 
I^Old  Saxon. 


Scandinavian. 

Please   give  particular  attention   to   two    of 
these  groups,  the  Italic  and  the  Teutonic.    See 


26  THE  FOR  TUXES  OF    WORDS. 

how  prolific  they  are,  how  numerous  and  vari- 
ous their  dialects.  Remember  that  they  repre- 
sent the  languages  of  some  of  the  strongest  and 
highest  nations  in  the  world.  Much  indeed  of 
what  is  great  and  worthy  in  modern  civilization 
is  represented  by  these  two  families.  Let  me 
insist  also  on  the  exceptionally  fortunate  posi- 
tion of  English.  While  the  other  intellectual 
languages  of  modern  Europe  belong  entirely 
either  to  the  Teutonic  family,  as  German,  or  to 
the  Latin  family,  as  French,  English  shares  the 
good  things  of  both  families.  Its  grammar  and, 
so  to  say,  its  substructure,  are  Teutonic,  but  its 
vocabulary  belongs  in  great  part  to  Latin. 

The  above  diagram,  where  we  have  the  pedi- 
gree of  all  the  Indo-European  languages,  shows 
where  we  have  to  look  for  the  etymology  of 
our  words.  If  we  have,  for  instance,  a  word 
belonging  to  a  French  dialect,  we  must  com- 
pare it  with  the  forms  it  has  assumed  in  other 
French  dialects,  then  in  the  other  Neo-Latin 
dialects,  then  with  the  form  it  had  or  the  word 
from  which  it  is  derived,  in  Latin.  The  Latin 
word  we  can  compare  with  cognate  words  in 
the   seven   Indo-European  groups,  and  finally 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  27 

we  can  determine  the  Aryan  root  from  which 
all  those  forms  are  derived. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  French  word  "  p^re," 
father.  This  word  occurs  in  an  endless  variety 
of  forms  in  all  the  Neo-Latin  dialects.  The 
typical  forms,  however,  are  these:  '  Pere,' 
Northern  Italian  dialects  '  pare,'  Italian  '  pa- 
dre,' Latin  pa-trc{j>i).  The  Latin  stem  is  prop- 
erly/(^-/^r,  where  -ter  is  a  suf^x,  to  be  found  in 
all  Aryan  languages,  denoting  the  '  agent,'  and 
pa-  is  a  primitive  Aryan  root  meaning  *  to  feed,' 
'to  support.'  Hence  'pater'  is  the  'feeder,' 
the  '  supporter.'  Following  up  this  same  word 
in  other  Aryan  languages,  we  find  pater  in 
Greok,  pidar  in  Persian, ///rz  in  Sanskrit,  and 
(according  to  Grimm's  law,  of  which  I  shall  say 
more  h&r Q3.iiQr),  fadar  in  Gothic,  feeder  in  An- 
glo-Saxon, father  in  English,  Vater  in  Ger- 
man, each  one  of  which  has  given  rise  to 
many  derivations,  such  as  '  fatherly,'  '  father- 
land,' '  patria,'  '  paternal,'  etc.  So,  taking 
one  simple  root  {pa),  we  can  follow  it  step  by 
step  through  all  its  transformations  and  prolifi. 
cations  in  all  the  dialects  directly  or  indirectly 
connected  with  the  primitive  Aryan  speech.  It 


28  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

is  easy  to  see  then  the  wide  scope  of  modern 
Hnguistic  researches.  Their  method  is  a  well- 
grounded,  matter-of-fact  proceeding,  their  field 
is  immense,  but  at  the  same  time  so  well  de- 
fined and  explored  that  the  glottologist  goes 
over  it  with  the  same  surety  as  an  intelligent 
traveller  goes  through  a  land  of  which  he  holds 
in  his  hands  a  good  map.  It  is  also  very  easy 
to  see  that  the  results  of  these  investigations 
must  be  such  as  the  poor  attempts  of  former 
etymologists,  feeling  their  way  in  utter  dark- 
ness through  a  labyrinth  of  which  they  knew 
neither  the  end  nor  the  beginning,  neither  the  be- 
longings nor  the  plan,  have  nothing  to  compare 
with  for  a  moment.  They  had  no  idea  of  roots, 
and  very  confused  ones  about  sufifixes  and  pre- 
fixes. Their  treatment  of  the  phonetic  princi- 
ples was  rude  and  empirical.  Even  when  they 
happened  to  hit  upon  a  right  point,  they  did  not 
know  it,  as  they  had  no  criterion  by  which  to 
test  the  value  of  their  discovery.  They  were 
just  like  a  sea-captain  who  has  lost  his  compass, 
and,  through  the  darkness  of  the  night,  cannot 
find  his  position  ;  he  will  steer  to  the  right  or 
to  the  left,  as  chance  suggests,  but  when  can  he 


\ 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  29 

tell  that  he  is  right  ?     A  mere  cabin-boy  knows 
just  as  much  as  he. 

To  see  better  the  difference  between  the  old 
and  the  new  methods,  let  us  look  into  the 
etymology  of  the  words  'pere'  and  'father,' 
as  given  by  two  old  etymologists.  Menage, 
the  celebrated  etymologist,  throws  '  father,' 
'  pere,'  '  pater,'  '  padre,'  etc.,  together  with 
'papa,'  of  which  he  says:  "  II  est  forme 
(comme  mamanj  par  la  nature  dans  la  bouche 
des  enfants,  et  il  n'en  faut  pas  cherchcr  ailleurs 
I'etj^mologie."  As  for  the  suf^x  tcr,  "  II  n'est 
qu'une  addition,  ou  pour  mieux  dire,  une  cor- 
ruption du  mot,  laquelle  ne  vient  point  de  leur 
nature,  mais  de  I'institution  des  hommes." 

Skinner,  in  his  "  Etymologicon  Linguae  An- 
glicans," derives  English  '  father,'  Anglo- 
Saxon  'faeder,'  German  '  vater,'  etc.,  all 
"immediately  from  Latin  'pater,'  mediately 
from  Greek  '  pater.'  "  The  Greek  word  then  is 
derived  either  from  paojiiai,  to  acquire,  or  from 
speiro,  to  sow.  About  the  formation  of  the 
word  pater,  whether  it  consists  of  several  ele- 
ments or  not,  nothing  is  said.  The  English 
father,  he  adds,  may  also  be  very  easily  (com- 


30  THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

modissime)  derived  from  the  Danish  w erh  fcder, 
to  nourish,  or  foder,  to  generate.  It  would  not 
be  easy  to  accumulate  more  mistakes  in  so  few 
lines. 


FOURTH    LETTER. 

The  Idea  of  Root — Grimm's  Law — The  Root  ak  and  its  De- 
rivations— The  Root  pa — The  Root  bha — The  Root  wid. 


WE  have  just  seen  how  from  words  which  are 
constantly  on  our  lips  we  can  go  back  to 
the  primitive  Indo-European  root  from  which 
those  words  descend.  The  root  that  is  thus 
reached  is  never  the  root  of  that  word  alone,  but 
is  the  kernel,  so  to  speak,  round  which  cluster 
families  of  words,  all  having  therein  a  common 
starting  point.  It  is  the  seed  from  which  a 
trunk  grows  up  with  branches,  leaves,  flowers 
and  fruits. 

The  method  we  have  applied  is  the  method 
of  one  w^ho  starts  from  the  mouth  of  a  river 
and  follows  it  up  to  its  very  source.  It  is  the 
method  by  which  sources  and  causes  are  dis- 
covered, and  science  is  made.  But  it  is  useful 
sometimes  to  follow  the  reverse  course,  namely, 
to  start  from  the  source,  or,  in  our  case,  from 
the  root,  and  follow  it  downward  in  all,  or  at 
least  in  its  main  directions.  Let  us  apply  this 
course  to  a  few  roots,  chosen   at    random   from 


32  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

among  the  linguistic  stock  of  the  Indo- 
European  nations,  and  let  us  follow  them  in 
their  route  in  two  at  least  of  the  most  import- 
ant families,  the  Latin  and  the  Teutonic.  We 
will  assume  as  the  best  representatives  of  the 
Latin  family  (the  best  or  the  most  apt  for  our 
purpose,  at  least)  Latin  itself  and  French ;  for 
the  Teutonic  family,  the  English  language. 
The  field,  thus  circumscribed,  is  still  wide 
enough,  and  I  am  sure  }'ou  would  not  care  to 
have  me  muster  before  )-ou  an  endless  array  of 
Old  Slavonic,  Old  High  German,  Celtic,  or  Zend 
words.  But  you  must  not  be  impatient  with 
me  if,  before  entering  upon  this  investigation,  I 
tarry  a  little,  calling  your  attention  to  certain 
facts  which,  although  they  may  seem  somewhat 
dry,  are,  nevertheless,  of  the  greatest  interest. 
In  the  first  place,  we  must  remember  that  a 
root  is  "that  combination  of  sounds  which 
remains  when  a  word  is  stripped  of  everything 
formative."  The  Indian  grammarians  called  a 
root  dhdtii,  from  dhd,  to  nourish.  Dhdtu  means 
any  "  primary  or  elementary  substance  "  ;  hence 
the  primary  element  of  words.  It  was  wise 
and   keen  to  call  roots   hy  a  word  meaning'  '  to 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  11 

nourish.'  Roots  are  indeed  the  feeding  ele- 
ment of  languages.  To  be  more  exact,  we  must 
take  here  feeding  in  the  broad  sense  which  we 
find  in  the  root  pa  (whence /^^-Z/z^r),  meaning 
both  feeding  and  breeding.  The  endless  variety 
of  our  words  is  but  a  growth  out  of  a  compar- 
atively meagre  stock  of  roots.  We  can  have  a 
good  idea  of  the  vital  power  of  roots  when  we 
remember  that  all  the  Indo-European  speeches 
do  not  presuppose  more  than  500  roots.  The 
number  of  roots  forthe  English  language  given 
by  Mr.  Skeat,  at  the  end  of  his  etymological 
dictionary,  is  461. 

The  discovery  of  roots  is  only  one  of  the 
glories  of  the  science  of  language.  It  has  also 
found  out  the  laws  (although  at  first  there  seems 
to  be  nothing  but  inextricable  confusion)  ac- 
cording to  which  the  various  Indo-European 
languages  reflect  the  sounds  which  constituted 
the  roots  in  the  mother  tongue.  A  most  im- 
portant law  is  that  which,  from  the  name  of 
the  great  German  philologist  who  discovered 
it,  is  known  as  Griviins  laxv.  It  is  a  law  on 
the  "rotation  of  consonants"  in  the  Indo- 
European  languages.     A  common,  although  un- 


34     .  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

scientific,  classification  of  our  consonants^ 
divides  them  into  Jiard  (P,  T,  C,  as  in  cost),  soft 
(B,  D,  G,  as  in^^),  and  aspirates  (H,  Ph  (f),  Th). 
Grimm  noticed  that  if  we  put  Sanskrit,  Greek 
and  Latin  on  one  side,  Low  German  (Gothic, 
Anglo-Saxon  and  English)  in  the  middle,  and 
Old  High  German  on  the  other  side,  then  an 
aspirate  in  the  first  group  is  represented  by  a 
soft  in  the  middle  group,  and  by  a  Jiard  in  the 
other  group;  a  soft  in  the  first  group  is  repre- 
sented by  a  Jiard  in  the  middle,  and  by  an 
aspirate  in  the  other;  and  finally,  a  hard'xw  the 
first  group  is  represented  by  an  aspirate  in  the 
middle,  and  by  a  soft  in  the  last  group.  Accord- 
ing to  J.  Peile's  suggestion  we  may  call  an  as- 
pirate A,  a  soft  S,  a  hard  H  ;  then  Grimm's 
law  may  be  represented  as  follows,  the  word 
ASH  serving  as  a  memoria  technica  for  the 
whole  : 


Sanskrit,  Greek, 

Low  German 

.  Gothic. 

Old 

Latin. 

Anglo-Saxon, 

English. 

H 

igh  Geiman. 

A 

s 

H 

S 

H 

A 

H 

A 

S 

I  will  not  enter  into  further  details,  as  on  this 
matter  I  had  occasion  to  dilate  elsewhere  ("  Phil- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 


35 


osophy  of  Words,"  p.  ']6  f.).  But  the  following 
table  will  give  an  easy  and  comprehensive  exhi- 
bition of  the  bearings  of  Grimm's  law  : 


LABIAL. 

DENTAL. 

GUTTURAL. 

In  Greek  and  generally 
in  Sanskrit   and  Lat- 
in, the   letters.    .    .. 

p                b               ph  f 

t      d          th 

k  (c)            g       kh 

Correspond  in    Gothic! 
(Anglo-Saxon,     En-j 
glish)  to iph  (f)       p                  b 

th    t            d 

kh(h,g)     k         g 

And  in    Old    H.    Ger- 
man to 

b  (v,  f)    ph,f           p 

d    th(z)      t 

g  (h)        kh       k 

Now  let  us  hasten  to  investigate  the  course 
of  some  particular  root.  Let  us  take  first  the 
root  AK,  which  has  a  wide  filiation  indeed.  If 
I  should  say  that  the  word  eye  comes  from  this 
root,  you  would  perhaps  laugh  at  me.  But  I 
shall  not  say  it ;  facts  say  it  for  me.  This 
root  means  properly  '  to  pierce,*  '  to  be  sharp,' 
and  (meanings  closely  allied)  '  to  see,'  '  to  be 
quick.'  From  it  we  have  the  Latin  verb  '  ac-u- 
ere,'  to  sharpen,  from  which  '  ac-utus,'  our 
ac-ute,  sharpened,  sharp.  Ague  is  only  a  trans- 
formation of  'acute,'  from  Old  French  agii, 
sharp,  feminine  agJie.  It  was  once  called 
febris  acuta,  sharp,  stinging  fever.     Latin  ac-us, 


36  THE  FORTUXES  OF    WORDS. 

needle,  and  our  ac-id,  ac-idity,  come  from  the 
same  root. 

Aq-va  in  Sanskrit  comes  from  the  same  root, 
and  means  '  swift,'  but  it  became  the  name  of 
the  horse;  Latin,  'aek-vus,'  'equus,'  horse; 
whence  our  'equine,'  'equestrian,'  The  Greek 
hippos,  horse,  was  once  ik-kos. 

Eager,  sharp,  keen,  desirous,  is  from  Latin 
ac-er,  keen  ;  Middle  English  egre,  Old  French 
eigre,  aigre. 

Our  ac-vic  is  the  Greek  ak-nitf,  a  point,  the 
highest  point. 

From  the  same  root  we  have  Old  Latin  oc-tis 
and  the  diminutive  oc-uhis,  eye,  Old  Greek  ok-os, 
Russian  oko,  Gothic  augo,  German  ange,  Anglo- 
Saxon  eagc,  Middle  English  eig/ie,  ei^c,  eye. 

This  is  a  good  specimen  of  the  life  of  roots. 

Starting  from  the  simple  and  general  mean- 
ing of  '  sharpness,'  it  winds  itself  through  many- 
languages,  under  many  forms.  It  gives  us  the 
name  of  a  fever,  of  a  noble  animal,  of  a  house- 
hold utensil,  of  an  intellectual  quality,  of  the 
organ  of  sight.  In  all  these  meanings  it  is  easy 
to  trace  out  the  primitive  general  '  meaning'  of 
the    root,    but    only    by    careful    comparative 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  37 

analysis  can  one  detect  the  '  form  '  of  the  root 
itself.  Still,  the  results  of  slow  but  continuous 
evolution  are  neither  more  wonderful  nor  more 
difficult  to  trace  here  than  in  any  other  field. 
Who  would  at  first  sight  believe,  for  instance, 
that  the  marvellous  works  of  our  architecture, 
the  churches,  the  arches,  the  palaces,  are  but  a 
slow  growth  and  improvement  from  the  hut  of 
the  savage  ? 

Let  us  take  up  again  the  root  PA,  which  we 
met  in  father.  The  primitive  meaning  of  this 
root  is  '  to  feed,'  '  to  nourish,'  hence,  to  support, 
to  protect.  We  have  from  it  the  words  pa-ter, 
father,  the  'feeder,'  the  'protector';  hence, 
'  paternal,'  '  patrocinium,'  '  patrocinate,'  '  patri- 
mony,' '  patria,'  the  fatherland,  *  patriotic,* 
'patrician';  'pa-bulum,'  food;  '  pa-sc-ere,'  to 
feed,  from  whose  past  pa-s-tiun  we  have  '  past- 
ure,' the  French  '  repas,'  meal,  '  pastor,'  '  pas- 
toral,' etc. 

We  have  the  same  root  in  the  adjective  pot-is, 
that  has  power,  that  protects,  and  pot-ens,  power- 
ful. Hospes,  whose  stem  is  hos-pii,  is  the  'pro- 
tector of  the  stranger,  of  the  host ' ;  hence, 
'  hospital,'  '  hospice,'  etc. 


38  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

From  this  form  pot,  we  have  the  Italian  pot- 
cre,  Old  French  povr,  pooir,  and,  to  avoid  the 
hxditns,  povoi'r,  Modern  French /!'^/^e/(?/r,  English 
power. 

These  formations  from  the  root  pa,  belong- 
ing to  the  Latin  family,  are  very  different  from 
those  that  belong  to  a  Teutonic  branch.  Ac- 
cording to  Grimm's  law,  the  root  pa  is  reflected 
in  Gothic  by  fa.  Hence  we  have  the  English 
forms,  '  fa-ther,'  'food,'  '  feed,'  '  fodder.' 

The  root  BHA.  This  is  also  an  important 
root,  and  means  to  'shine,'  to  'make  shine,' 
and  generally  to  '  make  appear,'  to  bring  to 
manifestation.  The  Indo-European  form  bha 
is  reflected  in  Latin  and  Greek  by  fa.  In 
Greek  we  have  the  verb  fa-mi,  to  say ;  fe-nie, 
saying,  rumor,  fame ;  pro-fe-tes,  '  fore-teller,' 
prophet ;  fo-iie,  voice  ('  tele-phone,'  '  phono- 
graph,' 'phonetic,'  'euphony,'  etc.);  fa-i-no,  to 
appear,  to  shine  •  hence,  faiti-dmenoji,  that 
which  appears,  manifestation,  '  phenomenon  '  ; 
fan-tasia,  '  that  makes  visible,'  '  that  brings 
forth,'  imagination,  '  fancy.'  Connected  with 
faino,  we  have  also  '  diaphanous,'  pellucid  ; 
'  epiphany,'  apparition. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  39 

From  the  same  root  we  have  also  fa-os  (fos), 
fotos,  light,  whence  our  '  photograph,'  *  photog- 
raphy,' etc. 

In  Latin  we  \\^.v^  fa-ri,  to  speak  ;  ad-far i  or 
affari,  to  address  somebody  ;  hence,  '  affable,' 
that  speaks  to  people,  kind  ;  ef-fari,  to  utter  ; 
'  in-effable,'  unutterable,  indicible  ;  prae-fari,  to 
say  before  ;  hence,  '  preface,'  that  which  is  said 
before  the  beginning  of  a  work ;  '  in-fant,' 
that  does  not  speak.  Fas  is  the  divine  law, 
that  which  is  divinely  spoken  ;  hence,  ne-farius, 
'  nefarious,'  against  the  divine  law,  horribly 
wicked.  Fa-ma,  '  fame  ' ;  fa-tum,  '  fa-te,'  that 
which  is  spoken,  prediction,  destiny;  '  fa-tal,' 
belonging  to  fate,  destined.  FatJia,  a  goddess 
foretelling,  foresaying  ;  to  '  infatuate,'  to  be- 
witch ;  '  infatuated,'  that  is  under  a  spell,  out 
of  his  wits,  crazed. 

We  have  also  the  verb  fa-t-cri,  to  say,  to  de- 
clare ;  hence  con-fit-eri  and  pro-fit-eri,  which, 
through  their  past  forms  confessiis,  professus, 
give  our  *  to  confess,'  to  say  to  others,  and  '  to 
profess,'  to  state  before  others  ;  '  confession,' 
'  profession,'  etc.  '  Profession  '  must  have  been 
said  at  first  only  of  declared  opinions  or  views, 


4°  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

the  Standing  of  a  man  in  regard  to  some  points 
of  religion,  morals  or  politics ;  hence  it  was 
applied  to  his  general  standing,  his  art,  his  '  pro- 
fession.' 'Professor'  is 'the  public  declarer'; 
the  teacher. 

From  the  same  root  is  fa-bula,  '  fa-ble,'  a  le- 
gend, a  story.  Connected  \v\\.\\  fatiwi  is  fata, 
the  goddess  of  destiny;  hence  Italian /^//rt,  a 
supernatural  being,  an  elf,  Portuguese  fada, 
French  y/^  (compare,  aim(fe  from  amata  dict^e 
from  dictata,  etc.),  English  fay.  From  fee  we 
have  in  French  yi%rz>,  a  work  of  the  ^  f(fe^  an 
enchantment ;  hence  Middle  English  faerie, 
fairye,  and  then/hr/rj,  which,  through  a  popular 
mistake,  received  the  meaning  of  elf,  instead 
of  enchantment  or  '  elfery,'  so  to  speak. 

The  root  WID,  to  see,  to  know. 

You  already  know  the  origin  of  the  word  '  his- 
tory.' In  Greek  from  the  root  vid,  and  the  sufifix 
-tor,  we  have  the  forms  vid-tor,  hid-tor,  his-tor,  he 
who  sees,  who  knows.  (These  different  forms  are 
explained  elsewhere  :  "  Philosophy  of  Words," 
p.  loo-ioi.)  From  Jiistor  we  have  the  verb 
historeo,  and  the  substantive  Jiistoria,  '  history,' 


THE   FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  4^ 

the  narration  of  him  who  has  seen,  who 
knows. 

The  Sanskrit  Veda,  knowledge,  doctrine, 
comes  from  the  same  root.  So  does  the  Latin 
verb  vid-erc,  to  see,  from  which  '  vi-sion  '  (for 
vid-tion),  '  visual,'  '  supervision,'  '  revision,'  '  vis- 
ible,' 'visit,'  '  visitation,'  etc.,  etc. 

From  the  Greek  form  id  we  have  also  the 
word  t'di^a,  properly  '  that  which  is  seen,'  an 
image  in  our  mind,  a  conception  ;  hence,  '  ideal,' 
'idealize,'  etc.  /do/  is  closely  connected  with 
'  idea  ' ;  it  means  also  a  '  little  image,'  a  statue. 

In  the  Teutonic  family  the  root  iv id  assumes 
the  form  wit,  and  from  it  we  have  words  which 
at  first  sight  nobody  would  suspect  of  any  affin- 
ity or  kinship.  First,  we  have  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  verb  ivit-an,  English  to  w zV,  to  know  ; 
and  the  adjective  ivise,  knowing,  learned,  dis- 
creet. The  words  ivitcJi  and  zviscacre  belong 
also  to  this  root,  but  they  need  some  explana- 
tion. 

We  find  in  Anglo-Saxon  the  word  wit-e-ga,  a 
prophet,  a  seer,  formed  with  suffixes  denoting 
the  agent  from  the  verb  tvit-an,  to  see,  to  know. 
From  witega  we   come  to  the  common   abbre- 


42  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

viated  forms  witga,  wicca,  feminine  wiccc,  Mid- 
dle English  zuicche,  the  old  form  for  tvitcJi,  a 
woman  (formerly  also  a  man)  supposed  to  be 
endowed  with  superhuman  knowledge,  with 
magic  power.  We  meet  with  the  same  fact  in 
Icelandic,  where  from  vita,  to  know,  we  have 
vitki,  a  wizard,  and  vitka,  to  bewitch. 

Wiseacre  is  a  good  specimen  of  what  strange 
transformations  words  may  undergo,  especially 
when  a  word  is  transplated  from  one  language 
into  another  and  the  new  people  that  use  it, 
not  knowing  its  true  origin  are  only  too  much 
inclined  to  see  in  it  some  connection  with  oth- 
er words  familiar  to  them,  and,  therefore,  so 
treat  it  in  pronunciation  and  spelling  as  to  suit 
their  etymological  instinct. 

Wiseacre  is  in  Old  Dutch  wiis-segger,  which 
is  a  strange  travesty  of  the  German  weissager,  a 
'  sooth-sayer,' as  if  it  meant  "  wise-sayer."  But 
the  German  word  itself  is  only  a  product  of 
ignorant  manipulation  at  the  hands  of  the 
people,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  verb 
sagen,  to  say.  The  verb  zveis-sagen  is  in  Middle 
High  German  wizagon,  which  is  derived  from 
the  substantive  wiz-a-go,  a  prophet.     This  tuiz- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  43 

a-go  is  formed,  with  suffixes  denoting  the  agent, 
from  the  Old  High  German  verb  wz^-««,  to  see, 
exactly  as  wit-e-ga  is  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  verb 
wit-an,  to  see.  Wiseacre,  then,  is  merely  the 
rather  hybrid  product  of  a  German  mistake  and 
English  phonetic  corruption.  It  has  nothing 
to  do  either  with  wise  or  with  acre.  It  is  a 
name  of  the  agent  formed  from  the  verb  zvit-aii, 
to  see,  and  means,  or,  to  be  more  exact,  meant 
"  seer." 


FIFTH    LETTER. 

Continuation  :  Growth  of  Roots — Latin  and  An{^lo-Saxon 
Words  in  the  English  Language — The  Root  bhar — The 
Root  Ink — The  Root  a'a  — The  Root  tai' — The  Root_y« — 
The  Root  ma  —The  Root  bhadh — The  Root  spak. 


I  HOPE  you  are  not  tired  yet,  as  I  want  to 
lay  before  you  some  more  instances  of  the 
development  of  roots.  I  am  well  aware  that 
these  researches,  interesting  as  they  are  in 
themselves,  at  length  become  rather  wearisome. 
In  fact,  xuhat  does  not  become  wearisome  if  too 
long  persisted  in?  But,  pray,  be  patient.  We 
shall  soon  have  done  with  this,  and  shall  pres- 
ently come  to  other  parts  of  our  subject,  which 
are  more  varied  and,  I  dare  say,  more  directly 
interesting. 

Concerning  the  striking  variety  of  words 
which  grow  out  of  one  root,  we  must  keep 
present  to  our  minds  two  particular  facts  :  First, 
an  Aryan  root  is  differently  modified  in  passing 


THE    FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  45 

over  into  one  of  the  different  branches  of  the 
Aryan  languages  ;  secondly,  once  the  root  is 
moulded,  so  to  speak,  according  to  the  partic- 
ular genius  of  a  language,  it  follows,  also  in  all 
its  further  developments,  the  tendencies  and 
laws  of  that  language.  Thus,  if  we  compare 
the  developments,  or  the  words  sprung  from 
one  root,  in  two  or  three  different  languages,  we 
must  expect  to  find  very  wide  dissimilarities. 
For  instance,  the  Aryan  root  pa  remains /<:?,  as 
we  saw,  in  Latin,  and  becomes  fa  in  the  Teu- 
tonic languages  ;  a  difference  which  becomes 
greater  if  we  compare  the  development  of  this 
root  in  these  two  branches,  as  we  \\z.vq  pabulum 
and  pasture  on  one  side,  food  and  fodder  on  the 
other. 

In  English  there  are  very  many  words  trans- 
planted from  Latin  which,  although  they  are 
reallv  doublets  of  Teutonic  words,  yet  seem  to 
have  with  the  latter  no  genealogical  connec- 
tion whatever.  In  fact,  the  bulk  of  the  English 
vocabulary  is  made  up  of  Anglo-Saxon  stock 
and  of  words  of  Latin  origin.  What  is  the  dif- 
ference between  these  two  component  parts? 
The   Anglo-Saxon   words  arise  from  primitive 


46  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

Indo-European  roots  and  came  down  to  us  di- 
rectly through  the  Teutonic  family  ;  the  Latin 
words  come  from  Indo-European  roots  as  well, 
but,  before  being  transplanted  into  the  English 
field,  they  were  developed,  moulded  and  elab- 
orated by  the  Latin  tongue.  Moreover, 
most  of  them  were  not  transplanted  directly 
from  Latin  into  English  either,  but  underwent 
a  second  elaboration  at  the  hands  of  the  French 
people,  from  which  finally  they  came  into  the 
English  language.  We  might  say  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  words  in  the  English  language  are 
like  plants  grown  up  from  Indo-European  seed 
on  Teutonic  ground,  in  a  Teutonic  '  milieu,'  fos- 
tered and  developed  by  Teutonic  men.  Its 
Latin  words,  on  the  other  hand,  are  like  plants 
grown  up  from  Indo-European  seed  also,  but 
on  Latin  soil  and  in  Latin  surroundings,  trans- 
ported afterwards  to  French  and  finally  to 
English  soil.  Of  course,  the  plants  that  are 
thus  brought  back  to  England  from  distant  and 
different  climes,  must  have  developed  into 
varieties  which  at  first  make  it  difficult  to  rec- 
ognize them  as  sisters  of  the  plants  that  have 
grown  from  the  same  seed  on  Teutonic  soil. 


THE   FOR  TUXES  OF    IVORDS.  47 

This  is  what  makes  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon 
words,  which  are  derived  from  the  same  root, 
look  so  different. 

Now,  let  us  resume  our  investigation  of  the 
course  of  some  roots. 

Root  BHAR,  tobear,  to  bring. 

As  the  root  bha  is  in  Latin  and  Greek  fa, 
bhar  is  in  Latin  and  Greek  far.  Hence  the  verb 
fer-re,  to  bear,  to  bring  ;  from  which  we  have 
to  'in-fer,'  to  '  pre-fer,'  to  '  re-fer,'  to  '  de-fer,* 
etc.;  the  adjective  '  fer-tile,'  that  brings  forth, 
fruitful ;  and  the  second  part  of  such  words  as 
'  odori-ferous,'  '  sopori-ferous,'  '  morti-ferous,' 
"  voci-ferous  '  (whence  '  voci-ferate  '),  etc.  For-s 
{for-t-is)  '  that  which  is  brought  about,'  chance  ; 
for-tiine,  '  fortune,'  '  case,'  destiny  ;  the  goddess 
of  chance  ;  '  fortunate,'  '  fortuitous,'  etc. 

This  root  is,  in  the  Teutonic  family,  bar,  from 
which  the  Anglo-Saxon  ber-au,  to  bear;  and 
'  burden,'  '  birth,' '  brother.'  '  Brother  '  answers 
to  Latin  '  fra-ter ' :  both  are  formed  from  the 
Indo-European  root  bhar;  but  one  is  the  result 
of  Latin  cultivation,  so  to  say,  the  other,  of 
Teutonic. 

Bier  also  belongs  to  the  same  root,  as  well  as 


48  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

Latin  fer-e-trii))i,  a  hearse.  (As  some  wag  would 
find  some  connection  between  '  bier '  and  '  beer,' 
we  may  observe  here  that  '  beer  '  has  nothing 
to  do  with  our  root.  It  is  probably  connected 
with  the  root  of  the  word  '  barley,'  meaning  to 
*  ferment.') 

The  root  LUK,  to  shine. 

We  have  the  Latin  verb  Inc-ere,  to  shine  ; 
luc-s,  light ;  luc-nien,  lu-men,  light  (hence 
'  luminous,'  '  illuminate,'  etc.)  ;  liic-na,  ln-na^ 
the  moon  ;  luc-idus,  shining ;  luc-strare,  lu- 
strare,  to  make  shine,  to  '  illustrate,'  '  illustri- 
ous,' shining,  etc.  From  this  root  we  have  also 
in  German  lich-t,  light,  Anglo-Saxon,  leoht, 
English  '  light.' 

The  root  DA,  to  give. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  prolific.  Selecting  from 
the  numerous  words  that  can  be  traced  to 
it,  we  find,  for  instance,  date,  properly  '  given.' 
The  letters  of  the  Pope  are  still  marked 
'  datum  Romae,'  '  given '  in  Rome,  such  and 
such  day.  We  find  also  the  Latin  do-n-uvi, 
gift,  and  our  '  donation.'  The  Latin  dos  (dot-is) 
is  what  is  given  to  the  bride,  '  dower ' ;  dot-arc, 
to   endow ;  in    Low    Latin   we  find  dotarimih 


IHE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  49 

Old  French  doaire,  afterwards  doiiaire,  English 
'  dower.' 

The  same  root  is  to  be  found  in  many  com- 
pound Latin  verbs  ending  in  -dere,  as  tra-dere, 
which  is  from  trails^  across,  over,  and  dare, 
properly  '  to  give  over,'  and  also  *  to  betray.' 
From  it  we  have  Italian  traditorc,  Old  French 
traitor,  English  '  traitor.'  '  Treason,'  Middle 
English  traison,  Old  French  traisoji,  is  also 
from  the  same  source. 

The  root  SPAK,  to  see,  to  spy. 

This  is  also  one  of  the  richest  in  its  growth. 
We  have,  for  instance,  in  Sanskrit  spaq-a,  a  spy. 
In  Greek  it  has  undergone  a  curious  metathesis  ; 
it  occurs  under  the  form  skop  (instead  of  spok) ; 
hence  skop-ds,  what  one  looks  at,  aim,  '  scope  '  ; 
'  epi-scop-os'  '  over-seer,'  popularly  disguised 
under  the  form  '  bishop  ' ;  skep-t-omai,  to  see,  to 
look  in,  to  enquire,  gives  us  the  word  scep-tic, 
which  at  first  meant  simply  'observer,' '  inquirer,' 
hence  'doubter,'  and  later,  '  unbeliever.' 

In  Latin  we  have  no  end  of  words  from  this 
root.  Spec-ies  is  the  appearance,  the  type,  the 
'  species.'  It  is  important  to  note  the  analogy, 
on  which  the  Greeks  formed  the  word  meaning 


50  T//E  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

'  species '  (eidos),  from  the  root  vid  meaning 
also  '  to  see.' 

Spec-tda,  a  place  to  look  from,  has  given 
us  'speculate,'  'speculation,'  etc.,  which,  from 
looking  out  for  the  weather,  stars,  and  comets, 
have  been  transferred  to  other  meanings  with 
which  celestial  bodies  have  not  much  to  do. 

From  the  supine  spec-twn,  we  have  such 
words  as  '  in-spect,'  to  look  into  ;  '  pro-spect,' 
to  look  out,  to  look  ahead  ;  '  su-spect,'  to  look 
under,  lest  something  lie  there  hidden;  'ex- 
pect,' '  respect,'  '  respectable,'  '  spectacle,'  etc., 
etc. 

All-spices  \s  in  Latiix  aii{i)-spicuim  from  avis, 
bird,  and  spec,  to  see ;  the  looking  at  the  flight 
or  other  movements  or  doings  of  birds  in  order 
to  guess  at  future  events. 

Spite  is  a  shortening  from  despite,  as  *  sport  * 
from  'desport.'  It  is  in  Old  French  despit,  and 
comes  from  Latin  de-spectus,  a  'looking  down,' 
contempt,  scorn.  Hence  despise,  despicable, 
etc. 


SIXTH  LETTER. 

Importance  of  the  Study  of  Roots. — Roots  and  Dictionaries. — 
History  of  Several  Familiar  Words  :  reception  and  capa- 
ble ;  pupil  (student)  and  pupil  (of  the  eye) ;  charming  ; 
mercy  and  market ;  villain;  valet ;  pontiff;  miss  and 
magistrate  ;  wig  and perruque . 


IT  is  evident  that  we  could  thus  go  on  exam- 
ining roots  in  all  their  derivatives  until 
we  had  exhausted  our  dictionary.  But  you 
need  not  be  afraid.  I  do  not  dare  to  put  your 
patience  to  such  a  trial.  All  I  want  is  to  have 
you  notice  two  facts:  First,  that  all  the  words 
we  have  examined — in  fact,  all  the  words  in  our 
language — even  those  that  convey  the  most 
abstract  ideas,  come  from  roots  whose  meaning 
is  simple  and  entirely  concrete.  If  you  go  over 
the  cases  we  have  enquired  into,  you  will  not 
find  an  exception  to  this  principle.  Second, 
the  root-material  underlying  all  linguistic 
growth  is  not  large.  There  are  but  a  few  hun- 
dred   roots    round    which    all     Indo-European 


52  THE  J'OR TUNES  OF  WORDS. 

words  cluster,  as  in  so  many  families.  It  fol- 
lows that  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  in  all 
studies  of  words  to  go  back  to  the  root.  Our 
trouble  will  be  amply  compensated,  since  words, 
thus  examined,  tell  us  the  story  of  their  lives, 
and  display  before  us  their  pedigrees,  with  all 
their  connections  and  relations.  And  I  hope 
that  you  will  fully  agree  with  me  when  I  say 
that  we  should  have  dictionaries  in  which  words 
are  arranged  not  alphabetically,  but  by  their 
roots.  Think  what  a  help  it  would  be,  if  we 
could  take  up  a  dictionary  divided  into  four 
hundred  and  odd  paragraphs,  according  to  the 
number  of  roots  from  which  the  substance  of 
the  language  has  developed,  and  take  in  at  one 
glance  the  filiation  of  each  root!  In  forty  or 
fifty  days — ten  roots  a  day — we  could  go  over 
the  whole  field  of  any  language.  The  study  of 
dictionaries  would  become  as  systematic  as  the 
study  of  comparative  anatomy,  or  botany,  or 
geology,  and  in  great  part  a  matter  of  reason- 
ing, rather  than  of  memory.  Besides,  it  would 
give  us  an  insight  into  the  true  meaning  of 
words,  such  as  now  scarcely  one  person  in  a 
thousand  has.     An  alphabetical  list  at  the  end 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  53 

would  help  us  to  find  every  word  the  root  of 
which  we  do  not  know  or  have  forgotten. 

Now,  putting  aside  this  genealogical  study 
of  words,  let  us,  for  the  sake  of  variety,  pursue 
our  researches  rather  desultorily,  as  chance  or 
pleasure  leads  us,  among  our  everyday  words, 
inquiring  what  connections  they  have  with  one 
another,  what  garments  they  were  successively 
clothed  with,  and  what  meanings  they  have 
assumed  in  their  long  peregrinations. 

Take,  for  instance,  ^reception,'  'recipient^ 
receive,  receipt,  accept,  acceptable,  capable,  capac- 
ity, captive.  That  capable  and  capacity  are  con- 
nected with  each  other,  it  is  self-evident  ;  so  are 
accept  and  acceptable,  receive  and  receipt,  etc. 
But  it  is  perhaps  not  so  evident  to  everybody 
that  all  these  words  are  derived  from  the  same 
root,  and  there  is  therefore  a  general  meaning 
which  underlies  all  their  meanings,  however  dif- 
ferent they  may  be. 

Capable  has  preserved  the  root  in  its  best 
form  ;  -able  is  merely  a  suffix  to  be  found  in 
hundreds  of  words  (sal-able,  speak-able,  port- 
able, etc).  Cap  is  the  root,  and  we  have  from 
it  the  Latin  verb  cap-ere,  to  take,  to  take  in,  to 


L«u-aA/^v^ 


(P. 


hA*CtC) 


54  T//£  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

contain.  Hence  cap-acious,  '  tliat  can  contain  *; 
cap-able,  that  can  take  in,  that  can  understand  ; 
therefore  'able,'  'skilful.'  In  the  compounds, 
the  root  cap  is  attenuated,  so  to  say,  into  the 
form  cip,  just  diS  fac  is  reduced  to  fie,  fat  to  fit, 
tag  to  tig,  etc.  Hence  the  verb  rc-cip-cre,  to 
take  again,  to  receive,  which  was  in  Old  French 
recever ;  and  recipient,  he  who  receives.  (In 
Italian,  recipiente  is  said  only  of  things,  that 
take,  that  contain,  as  barrels,  casks,  etc.)  From 
the  supine  (Lat.  re-cep-tum)  we  have  such  forms 
as  receipt,  reception,  except,  accept,  etc.  To  except 
is  to  take  out,  to  accept  is  to  take  to  (one's  self), 
to  admit. 

Captive  is  the  man  who  is  taken,  a  prisoner. 
In  French  captive  has  given  also  cJu'tif,  which 
meant  at  first,  like  the  Latin  captivus,  a  prisoner 
of  war.  By  a  natural  transition  it  came  to  mean 
'  miserable,'  '  to  be  pitied,'  and  now  it  means 
'poor,'  'paltry,'  'puny';  KngUsh  caitifi^{Captain, 
from  Low-Latin  capitaneus,  is  from  the  stem  capit 
oi  caput,  the  head,  the  man  who  is  at  the  head, 
who  leads.)  Prince  (Italian  principe,  Latin  prin- 
cipeni),  is  ix ova  prim  {prin  before  c)  ior  primtis, 
first,  and  the  root  cap,  to  take ;  prince,    '  he 


{jA^^Ill/-. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  55 

who  takes  the  first  place,'  a  prominent  person, 
a  leader.  Yience  principal,  oi  first  importance, 
and  principle,  a  beginning,  a  leading  tenet. 

We  speak  of  a  studious  boy  as  a  good  pupil, 
and  we  speak  of  the  pupil  of  the  eye.  Is  there 
any  connection  between  these  two  words  ?  Yes  ; 
they  are  the  very  same  word.  We  have  in 
Latin  the  word  pupus,  which  means  a  little  boy, 
a  child,  (feminine  pupa,  a  little  girl,  a  doll,  a 
puppet).  From  pupus  the  diminutive ////z'/Zz/j' 
is  derived,  froui  which  our  pupil,  a  boy,  a 
scholar,  and  pupil  of  the  eye,  that  is  the  little 
image  or  picture  which  we  see  in  the  center 
of  our  eyes. 

When  you  say  of  one  of  your  friends  that  she 
is  '  charming,'  you  hardly  think  that,  had  you 
said  this  some  centuries  ago,  your  friend  would 
have  run  a  great  risk  of  being  burnt  alive. 
From  a  root  kas,  we  have  in  Latin  cas-men, 
later  car-men,  which  means  a  sound,  a  song,  a 
poem.  It  was  said  especially  of  the  religious 
verses  recited  or  murmured  by  priests  in  the 
performance  of  their  rites,  and  of  the  formulas 
used  to   conjure    up  the   spirits  of    the  dead. 


56  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

From  this  wc  have  the  French  verb  charmer, 
to  conjure,  to  enchant.  The  English  charm 
comes  from  Latin  carmen,  through  a  French 
channel,  and  meant  properly  to  enchant,  to  cast 
a  spell.  Charmhtg  was  then  a  real  synonym  of 
'  bewitching  '  ;  but  what  is  to  us  an  expression 
of  personal  magnetism,  of  fascination,  to  the 
superstitious  and,  if  I  may  say  it,  witch-ful  mid- 
dle-ages was  a  terrible  accusation  of  commun- 
ion with  evil  spirits,  to  be  atoned  for  by  death. 
The  word  magnetism,  which  I  have  just  used, 
has  also  a  long  story.  Magnet,  the  loadstone, 
was  so  called  from  the  city  of  Magnesia,  where 
its  peculiar  properties  were  first  observed. 
Hence,  '  magnetic,'  that  has  great  attractive 
power,  great  personal  influence, 

Mercy,  merciless,  market,  commerce,  mcrcJiant, 
mercJiandise,  mercatorial,  all  come  from  one  and 
the  same  root.  We  have  the  verb  mcr-eri,  to 
receive  a  share,  to  gain,  to  deserve  ;  mcr-i-tum, 
is  that  which  is  deserved,  desert,  merit.  We 
have  also  in  Latin  merx  (accusative  mcrcem), 
that  which  is  obtained,  which  is  purchased  ; 
hence  our  mercer  or  dealer,  merchant  and  mcr- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  57 

chandise.  We  have  also  nierces  (accusative 
mercedem)  that  which  is  obtained  (not  by- 
money),  compensation,  reward.  From  nierces 
we  have  jnercy,  which  gradually  lost  its  mean- 
ing of  a  regular,  legal  compensation,  and  as- 
sumed that  of  concession  or  reward  given  out 
of  a  sense  of  fairness  and  charity.  A  lawyer 
would  say  that  the  word,  from  a  strictly  juridi- 
cal meaning,  passed  over  to  one  of  equity,  and 
finally,  having  left  the  field  of  law  entirely, 
took  shelter  within  the  pale  of  charity  and 
sympathy. 

Villain  has  been  an  unfortunate  word.  It 
was  in  Latin  viltanus,  the  inhabitant  of  the 
villa,  the  countryman.  Subsequently  it  as- 
sumed the  meaning  of  rustic  (which  is  from 
rus,  the  country),  and  its  downward  course 
once  begun,  could  not  be  stopped.  Thus  it 
came  to  mean  ill-bred,  ill-natured,  just  as 
'  rough  '  came  to  mean  rascal,  rogue,  black- 
guard. 

The  French  word  valet  has  also  lost  a  great 
deal.     It  was  once  written  vaslct,  a  diminutive 


&4A 
58  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

form  of  vassal,  vassallet.  It  was  applied,  dur- 
ing the  feudal  days,  to  any  young  warrior,  any 
young  vassal,  whose  duty  it  was  to  follow  his 
chief  and  assist  him  with  his  services.  The  son 
of  a  king  might  have  been  called  a  vaslet,  or 
valet ;  but  now,  hardly! 

Other  words,  on  the  contrary,  have  taken  an 
upward  road,  and  have  gained  in  their  meaning. 
Pontiff,  French  Pontife,  Italian /^'k?;//^^?^^,  brings 
us  back  to  the  Latin  pontifex.  It  was  once 
taught  in  schools  X\\z\\.  pontifex  meant  properly 
bridge-maker  {pojis  is  bridge),  and  the  Romans, 
with  a  philosophic  and  broad-minded  sense  of 
of  the  utility  of  inter-communications,  had 
entrusted  them  to  the  highest  religious  author- 
ity, so  as  to  give  this  extremely  important 
department  a  kind  of  religious  prestige.  This, 
however,  is  more  ingenious  than  true.  Pons  at 
first  meant  simply  a  '  path,'  and  it  is  more  prob- 
able that  pontifex,  "the  path-maker,"  meant 
the  leader  in  processions  and  other  religious 
ceremonies. 

Sire,  as  we  saw  elsewhere,  comes  from  Latin 
senior,  which  means  simply  elder,  elderly.    From 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  59 

the  same  word  we  have  signorina  and  senorita, 
the  Italian  and  Spanish  words  for  viiss^  which 
mean,  however,  according  to  their  etymology, 
'little  old  woman. ' 

Who  would  believe  that  there  is  any  connec- 
tion between  miss  and  magistrate  ?  Still  a 
mere  glance  at  their  history  will  dispel  all 
doubts  of  their  common  origin.  Latin  magis- 
tratiis  is  from  magister,  which,  being  a  doubly 
comparative  form,  means  properly  '  more 
greater  "  and  conveys  ideas  of  authority  and 
superiority.  From  magister,  through  the  fre- 
quent loss  of  the  consonant  between  two  vow- 
els, we  have  the  Old  French  niaistre,  and  our 
master,  from  which  mastress,  mistress.  Now 
miss,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  "  Philosophy  of 
Words,"  is  merely  a  slight  transformation  of 
the  word  misses,  our  pronounciation  of  mistress. 

It  is  not  easy,  at  first,  to  see  any  connection 
between  the  word  season,  as  winter,  fall,  etc., 
and  the  seasoning  of  a  salad.  There  is  the 
same  connection  as  in  French  between  the 
substantive  saison,  the  season,  and  the  verb 
assaisonner ,  to  season. 

The  French  saison,  from  which  the  English 


60  TB'E  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

season,  is  from  Latin  satio)icjn,  the  sowing  time, 
the  spring.  But  how  from  this  meaning  we 
went  to  that  of  seasoning  a  dish,  is  well  ex- 
plained by  Littr6  in  his  "  Pathologic  vcrbale." 
The  proper  meaning  of  assaisonner,  to  season, 
is  to  cultivate  in  the  proper  season,  to  ripen  in 
time.  "  Viande  assaisonn^e  "  means  cooked  "  k 
point,  ni  trop,  ni  trop  peu,  comme  qui  dirait 
murie  a  temps.  Du  moment  que  assaisonner 
fut  entre  dans  la  cuisine,  il  n'en  sortit  plus,  et 
de  cuire  a  point  il  passa  a  I'acception  de  mettre 
a  point  pour  Ic  gout  a  I'aide  de  certains  ingre- 
dients," 

Did  you  ever  suspect  that  our  wig  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  French  perriiqiie  ?  The 
French  word  passed  into  English,  where  we 
find  perwigge,  and  later  periwig.  Out  of  a 
false  notion  that  this /rrz  was  the  Greek  prepo- 
sition, which  we  have  in  many  other  words,  like 
*  perimeter,'  '  Peripatetic,'  etc.,  it  was  dropped 
in  the  course  of  time  and  we  came  to  this  poor 
wreck,  zvig.  As  to  the  French  perruqiie,  it  is  to 
be  referred  to  the  Italian  peliicca,  from  pelo, 
hair. 


/-jK-;.  ci'.'*'*<>txc' . 


SEVENTH  LETTER. 

Continuation  :  to  escape,  to  dismantle,  artillery,  coquetry,  dupe, 
to  arrive,  pi-ess  and  express ;  gossip  and  commerage ; 
hypocrite ;  throne,  angel,  government,  alms. — Changes  in 
personal  and  local  names:  Ingleford,  Cape  Hvarf, 
Chateau  Vert,  Beauchef,  Grand-Pont,  etc. — Names  of 
Ships. — Signs  of  Inns. 


THE  original  meaning  of  the  word  '  escape,' 
French  ecJiapper,  had  a  humoristic  tinge, 
of  which  we  are  no  longer  conscious.  In  Low- 
Latin  they  had  a  word  capa  to  designate  a 
kind  of  coat  that  covered  all  the  body  ;  from 
this  is  the  Itah"an  cappa,  a  kind  of  mantle..  To 
escape  {ex-caparc),  meant  properly  to  get  out  of 
one's  coat,  as  when  one  holds  you  by  your 
sleeves,  and  you  slip  out,  leaving  your  coat  in 
his  hands.  It  was  really  a  slang  term  ;  to  '  ske- 
daddle,' we  should  say  now.  The  verb  is  pre- 
served, but  its  original  piquancy  has  been  lost. 
Another  verb  we  have  taken,  like  escape, 
from  the  name  of  a  coat.  To  dismantle,  French 
de'nia)itclcr,  is  properly  to  take  away  a  mantle, 


62  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

an  overcoat.  But  now  we  mean  thereby  to 
pull  down,  to  destroy  the  ramj^arts  of  a  city. 
The  French  d/juantcler  was  first  introduced  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  and  Littre  is  right  when 
he  says  that  it  is  really  ingenious  to  have  com- 
pared the  bulwarks  of  a  city  to  the  mantle 
that  protects  man  against  cold  and  bad  weather. 

Once  the  word  artillery  had  nothing  to  do 
with  gunpowder  or  firearms.  It  is  a  collective 
substantive  derived  from  '  art,'  and  it  meant  all 
the  implements  and  engines  of  war,  used  for 
attack  and  defence.  The  invention  of  gun- 
powder put  out  of  use  all  bows,  catapults,  and 
other  instruments  which  were  the  artillery  of 
old.  The  word,  however,  remained,  and  was 
applied  to  guns,  cannons,  and  all  the  new 
machines  of  war  introduced  after  that  great 
invention. 

Attach  and  attackdLVQ  etymologically  identical. 
This  is  one  of  the  many  cases  in  which  one 
word  gives  birth  to  two.  By  and  by  the  natural 
selection  of  custom  diversifies  them  in  their 
meaning. 

Coquette  is  derived  from  the  French  cog,  the 
English  cock.     One   cannot  help  admiring  the 


I 

7W/i    FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  63 

ingenious  and,  to  use  Littre's  word,  '  riante,'  im- 
agination that  has  transferred  the  air  and  the 
appearance  of  our  gallant  chanticleer  to  the 
human  kind,  and  has  found  there  a  happy 
expression,  "  pour  I'envic  de  plaire,  pourle  desir 
d'attirer  en  plaisant."  It  is  rather  strange  that 
in  Italian  the  same  idea  should  be  expressed 
by  the  word  civetta,  which  means  '  owl.' 

Another  word  derived  from  the  name  of  a 
bird  is  the  French  dupe.  Dupe  is  an  old  name 
for  the  whoop,  French  huppc.  This  bird  has 
the  reputation  of  being  very  silly  and  very  easy 
to  catch.  It  has  not  been  difficult,  then,  for  the 
popular  mind  to  apply  the  name  of  the  bird  to 
people  who  are  easily  deceived.  In  the  same 
way  we  use  goose,  duck,  gander,  etc. 

The  verb  arrive,  French  arriver,  brings  us 
back  to  a  Low-Latin  adripare,  where  the  word 
ripa,  bank,  is  clearly  visible.  Arriver  meant  in 
Old  French  only  to  go  or  to  push  to  the  bank, 
to  the  shore.  Littre  quotes:  "Li  vens  les 
arriva,"  the  wind  pushed  them  ashore.  By  and 
by,  the  idea  of  bank  or  shore  was  lost  sight  of, 
and  to  '  arrive  '  came  to  mean  to  reach  any 
place  whatever.     In    French  they  went  a  step 


64  T//B  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

further,  and  so  they  say  of  a  fact  that  it 
reached  a  place,  *  took  place  ;'  '  il  arriva  que 
.   .  .  ,*  it  happened  that  .  .   . 

The  word  '  coviplinieiit '  is  not   derived  from 

•  a  completionc  mentis  '  nor  'a  complete  men- 
tiri/  "  fully  lying,"  as  Fuller  contends,  "  because 
compliments  are  usually  completely  menda- 
cious." It  is  simply  a  substantive  made  from 
the  Old  French  verb  coniplir,  Latin  coniplere,  to 
fulfill,  and  meant  at  first  "  accomplishment." 
The  acts  and  words  of  civility  towards  one's 
friends  and  neighbors  were  regarded  as  '  accom- 
plishments,' as  the  fulfillment  of  a  duty. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  find  two  words  which 
can  teach  us  more  about  the  evolution  that 
words  go  through  than  "  press  "  and  "  express." 
They  are  derived  from  the  same  word,  they  are 
similar  in  sound,  and  still  their  meaning  is  so 
wide  apart.  From  prcssiim,  the  supine  of  the 
i^atin  verh  premere,  to  press,  to  weigh  down,  we 
have  the  verb  to  press,  and   the  compounds  to 

*  impress,'  to  '  repress,'  to  '  oppress,'  etc.     The 
verb  to  'express'  and  the  substantive  '  expres- 
sion,'    which    means    literally  '  pressing    out, 
aptly  indicate  the  mental  labor  necessary  to  find 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  65 

in  words  a  fitting  garment  for  our  thoughts. 
The  past  participle  '  express,'  which  means 
nothing  but  'said,'  came  to  have  a  pecuHar 
strength,  as  when  we  say:  '  He  told  us  in  ex- 
press terms,'  namely,  '  He  really  uttered  these 
words,  there  is  no  doubt  about  it.'  Hence  such 
expressions  as  '  by  his  express  command,'  that 
is  to  say,  '  by  his  special,  particular  command,' 
When  we  speak  of  an  '  express  train,'  we  use 
the  word  in  the  same  sense,  'a  special  train,' 
In  the  same  time  the  woxdi  press,  which  at  first 
was  said  of  a  simple,  rude  contrivance  to  press 
down  a  piece  of  paper  against  some  set  types, 
took  the  meaning  of  all  that  came  out  of  such 
pressure,  so  that  the  name  of  a  poor,  almost 
primitive  tool  came  to  mean  one  of  the  greatest 
powers  in  the  world. 

Imagine  two  diverging  lines  :  they  start  from 
the  same  point,  and  at  first  they  are  so  close  to 
each  other  that  naked  eyes  fail  to  perceive  any 
interval  between  them.  But  let  them  go  on, 
each  in  its  direction,  and  they  will  run  so  wide 
apart  that  no  imaginable  space  can  enclose 
them.  The  same  thing  happens  with  the  mean- 
ings of  our  words. 


66  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

Gossip  is  another  word  the  meaning  of  which 
has  travelled  very  far,  so  to  speak,  from  its 
birth-place.  Chaucer  spells  it  gossib,  a  trans- 
formation from  ^<?<y-^z'(^.  5z'(^  means  '  akin.'  God- 
father and  godmother  are  '  god-sib,'  akin  in  God. 
It  seems  almost  fatal  for  people  who  are  akin  to 
be  fond  of  a  good  chat  together,  and  of  dissect- 
ing liberally  common  relations.  The  French 
conimdrage  (from  comincre,  god-mother)  and  the 
Italian  co^nare,  god-mother,  went  through  the 
same  evolution  of  meaning,  and  are  now  syno- 
nyms of  gossip,  idle  at  least,  if  not  uncharitable. 

Hypocrite  was  not  such  a  bad  word  at  first  as 
it  is  now.  It  is  a  Greek  word  and  meant  simply 
an  actor,  one  who  clothes  himself  with  other 
people's  personality  for  an  artistic  purpose.  It 
is  easy  to  see  how  from  this  we  came  to  the 
present  meaning  of  the  word. 

Throne,  on  the  contrary,  had  nothing  lofty 
about  it.  It  meant  simply  a  stool.  Use,  by 
that  selection  which  sometimes  is  not  more  ac- 
countable in  language  than  in  other  fields,  picked 
it  out  of  many  other  words  meaning  a  stool  or 
chair,  and  reserved  it  for  the  chair  where  a  king 
sits. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  67 

Nor  had  «;/^'-<?/ anything  divine  in  its  meaning. 
It  meant  simply  a  messenger.  It  was  afterwards 
confined  to  the  messengers  of  God. 

Nor  had  government,  as  I  already  liad  occa- 
sion to  remark  elsewhere,  anything  to  do  with 
the  great  art  of  the  shepherds  of  peoples,  to  use 
Homer's  phrase.  We  have  in  Greek  the  verb 
Kv^iEpvav,  which  means  '  to  steer.'  '  Guberna- 
tor,'  in  Latin,  was  the  pilot  of  a  boat.  By 
metaphor  gubernator,  goiiverneur,  governor 
became  the  title  of  the  man  who  steers  the 
Ship  of  the  State. 

There  are  some  changes  in  words  which  are 
as  many  indexes  of  other  important  changes, 
social,  political  or  religious.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  word  '  alms.'  This  was  once  a  noble  word. 
Through  the  forms  aelmaesse  (Anglo-Saxon), 
almesse  (Middle  English),  almes,  alms  comes 
from  the  Greek  eleemosyne,  from  the  verb  eleeo, 
to  have  pity,  to  have  sympathy  for  the  suffer- 
ing of  our  fellow-men.  It  had  then  a  meaning 
essentially  moral;  it  meant  the  sharing  with 
one's  soul  of  other  people's  grief.  By  and  by 
it  was  narrowed  down  to  the  present  meaning. 
Do  you  not  think  that  this  change  is  very  sig- 


68  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

nificant  ?  It  docs  not  speak  well  for  the  rich 
indeed  if,  as  the  story  of  this  word  tells  us,  a 
few  crumbs  of  bread  or  a  little  money  have 
taken  the  place  of  that  genuine  heartfelt  sym- 
pathy which  is  the  first  of  our  duties.  And  the 
poor  must  have  been  very  poor  and  wretched 
to  accept,  without  grudge  or  complaint,  the 
present  meaning  of  the  word  alms,  forgetful 
entirely  of  its  noble  meaning  of  old.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  in  Italy,  with  the  lower  people  at 
least,  the  word  carita  (charity)  has  suffered  from 
the  same  degradation  of  meaning ;  from  the 
expression  of  that  highest  bond  of  love  and 
sympathy  which  should  bind  all  mankind,  it 
sank  to  designate  the  crumbs  of  bread  thrown 
indifferently  or  sc<M-nfully  to  a  beggar.  But  of 
these  changes  which  imply  moral  or  social 
changes,  we  shall  see  more  presently. 

Before  passing  over  to  other  considerations, 
let  us  cast  a  glance  at  some  queer  changes 
which  have  taken  place  in  proper  names  either 
of  places  or  of  persons.  Such  names  are  as  a  rule 
far  more  steady  in  their  forms  than  other  com- 
mon words.  But  sometimes,  especially  when 
they  pass   from   one   to  another  language  and 


THE   FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  69 

when  popular  fancies  about  their  etymology 
come  into  play,  they  show  very  striking  trans- 
formations. (See  Taylor,  "  Words  and  Places.") 

higlcford,  for  instance,  or  the  ford  of  the 
Angles,  has  given  HiDigcrford.  "  Cape  Wrath 
was  originally  Cape  Hvarf,  a  Norse  name,  indi- 
cating a  point  where  the  land  trends  in  a  new 
direction."  In  Oxfordshire  Chateau  vert  has 
become  Shot  over  Hill;  Beau  chef,  BeacJiy 
Head;  Grand  Pont,  '  the  great  Bridge,'  Gram- 
pound.  Leighton  Beau  desert  has  become 
*Leighton  Buzzard. 

Grammercy  Square,  in  New  York,  you  would 
at  first  suppose  is  of  French  origin.  But  in 
the  old  Dutch  maps  of  the  city  its  name  is  De 
Krontnie  Zee,  the  crooked  lake,  and  its  site  was 
occupied  by  a  pond. 

Anse  des  Cousins,  the  "bay  of  mosquitoes," 
became  Nancy  Cousins  bay.  Hagenes,  one  of 
the  Scilly  Isles,  became  St.  Agnes,  and  Soracte, 
the  mountain  dear  to  Horace,  is  now  called  St. 
Oreste. 

A  tower,  near  Grenoble,  that  was  called  from 
St.  Vcrena,  is  now  called  la  tour  Sans  VENIN,  the 
tower  without   poison,    and   the   peasants    are 


7o  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

firmly  convinced  that  no  poisonous  animal  can 
live  in  the  neighborhood  of  that  tower. 

Sailors  have  changed  H.  M.  S.  Bellerophon 
into  'the  Billy  Ruffian';  the  'Andromache' 
into  the  'Andrew  Mackay ';  the  'Coins'  into 
the 'Alehouse';  the  '  Courageux '  into  the  'Cur- 
rant juice,'  and  the  steamer  '  Hirondelle  '  (the 
swallow),  into  the  'Iron-devil.' 

To  this  category  belong  the  rather  fantastic 
transformations  of  signs  of  inns ;  for  instance, 
of  'the  Bacchanals'  into  'the  Bag  o*  Nails'; 
the  '  Pige  washael,'  or  the  virgin's  greeting,  into ' 
the  '  Pig  and  Whistle.'  If  you  will  allow  me, 
I  will  conclude  this  list  with  the  prodigious 
linguistic  feat  of  that  groom  "  who  used  to  call 
Othello  and  Desdemona — two  horses  under  his 
charge — by  the  names  of  Old  fellow  and  Thurs- 
day moining." 


EIGHTH  LETTER. 

Some  more  Researches  in  the  History  and  Connection,  of 
Familiar  Words. —  Tear  and  larme  ;  dies,  jour  and  Tues- 
day ;  chair,  cathedral  and  session;  tile  and  detective ; 
coin  in  English  and  in  Frenchy  fl'?<;W(2  and  combustion  ; 
altar  and  origin  ;  initial  and  count;  surgeon  and  ga)-- 
dener ;  arroms  and  intoxication  ;  temple  and  anatomy; 
tide  and  demon  ;  timber  and  domestic ;  symposium  and 
poison  ;  a  '  buxom  '  woman  ;  syllable  and  syllabus  ;  deluge 
and  laundry ;  prose  and  verse ;  hectic  and  sail ;  village, 
parish  and  diocese;  chaperon;  complexion;  beauty  and 
bounty  ;  reasons  and  rations. 


1SAID  I  would  put  an  end  to  this  rather 
desultory  review  of  words  most  notable  for 
their  changes  in  sound  and  meaning,  in  order 
to  pass  over  to  other,  in  my  mind,  more  inter- 
esting parts  of  our  subject.  But  you  write  me 
that  you  feel  so  niucJi  interested  in  these  re- 
searches, and  you  like  these  zv\x\o?XWqs,  so  miicJi, 
that  1  will  take  }'ou  at  your  word,  and  devote 
one  letter  more  to  this  same  branch,  bringing 
you  another  batch  of  familiar  words  whose  use 
has  undergone  striking  transformations. 


72  THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

I.  Taylor,  in  his  excellent  book  on  "  Words 
and  Places,"  asks  (page  256):  "Who  would 
imagine  that  the  French  word  larnie  is  the 
same  as  the  English  tear  :  that  the  French ^bz^r 
is  a  lineal  descendant  of  dies ;  or  \.\v3Xjoiir  and 
the  two  syllables  of  Tuesday  are  all  descended 
from  the  same  original  Aryan  root  ?  " 

Is  this  true  ?  Let  us  see.  From  a  typical 
Aryan  form  dak-ra,  a  tear,  we  have  the  Greek 
forms  dakru,  dakrnon,  dakrtima,  and  Old  Latin 
dacrima,  which  afterwards,  with  a  change  not 
unusual,  passed  into  lacrinia.  From  this  we 
have  the  Italian  lagrima  or  lacrima,  and  the 
French  larme  (as  sacra-uientum  has  given  ser- 
ment).  According  to  Grimm's  law,  to  the 
Aryan  type  dakra  answers  a  Teutonic  type 
tagra.  Hence  Gothic  tagr,  Danish  taar,  Anglo- 
Saxon  tear,  taer,  English  tear  (Middle  English 
tere). 

From  Latin  dies  we  have  the  adjective 
'diurnus,*  of  day  time;  from  which  the  Italian 
giorno^joiirn  in  the  Northern  Italian  dialects, 
jour  in  French. 

The  last  part  of  Mr.  Taylor's  sentence  is  not 
correct.     Latin  dies  descends  from  a  root  diu, 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  73 

to  shine  ;  this  root  gives  in  Anglo-Saxon  tiw, 
from  which  we  have  the  name  of  the  God  Tiw  : 
Tewesday,  Tiwes-day,  Tues-day.  It  is  true 
then  that  jour,  which  is  derived  from  dies,  and 
the  '  first '  syllable  of  Tuesday  descend  from  the 
same  original  Aryan  root;  but  the  'second' 
syllable  of  Tuesday,  that  is  the  substantive  ^irzj, 
Middle  English  dai,  dei,  Anglo-Saxon  daeg, 
Dutch  dag,  Gothic  dags,  German  tag,  is  of  an 
origin  entirely  uncertain,  and  has  no  connection 
with  the  root  of  Latin  dies.  Were  these  two 
words,  day  and  dies,  derived  from  the  same 
Aryan  root,  the  English  word  should  begin  by 
/,  according  to  Grimm's  law  (compare  duo,  tivo; 
dacriuna,  tear).  Besides,  it  would  still  be  im- 
possible to  explain  the  g  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
form  daeg. 

So  easy  it  is,  even  for  scholars  like  Taylor, 
to  be  deceived  by  a  resemblance  of  sounds ! 

Would  you  say  that  there  is  any  connection 
between  chair  and  cathedral?  Still  they  are 
derived  from  the  same  root  and  word  ;  only  one 
is  a  substantive,  whilst  the  other  has  an  adjec- 
tival form.  There  is  more  :  the  word  session, 
which  seems  to  be  miles  apart,  belongs  also  to 


74  THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

the  same  root,  and  when  we  say  '  a  sitting 
chair,'  we  say  twice  the  same  thing,  uncon- 
sciously, as  '  chair  '  means  by  itself  something 
to  sit  upon. 

We  have  the  Aryan  root  sad,  to  which  an- 
swers the  Teutonic  sit.  This  root  appears  in 
Latin  and  Greek  under  the  form  sed.  But  in 
Greek,  according  to  the  tendency  of  that  lan- 
guage to  substitute  an  initial  s  with  an  aspirate 
(compare  Jms,  Latin  sus ;  hals,  Latin  sal,  etc.), 
the  root  sed  became  hed.  From  this  root  we 
have  hed-ra  {i^pa),  '  something  to  sit  on,'  a  chair, 
a  seat.  With  the  prefix  katd,  we  have  catlicdra, 
a  seat,  a  stool,  a  pulpit.  Hence  cathedral 
church,  a  church  with  a  seat,  a  throne  for  the 
bishop. 

This  word  '  cathedral,'  belonging  to  the  eccle- 
siastical world  and  being  introduced  into  our 
language  by  learned  men,  has  preserved  its 
entire  form.  But  the  word  'cathedra'  itself, 
having  become  a  popular  word,  underwent  all 
those  surprising,  but  at  the  same  time  regular 
transformations  by  means  of  which  the  people, 
unconsciously  yet  symmetrically  and  analogic- 
ally,  mould    foreign    words   according    to    the 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  75 

types  of  their  own  language.  Cathedra  passing 
into  the  French  language  :  First,  had  to  change 
the  sound  ca  into  cha  (English  s/ia) ;  compare 
chapeau  from  capelliini,  chateau  from  caste  Hum, 
etc.  Second,  th,  reduced  first  to  /,  had  to  dis- 
appear. As  we  have  often  noticed,  it  is  a  law 
of  the  French  language  that  a  consonant 
between  two  vowels,  in  certain  particular  com- 
binations, disappears  ;  compare  Jen  from  iociis, 
fen  from  focus,  maistre,  maitrc,  from  magister, 
etc.  Third,  d  (or  /)  before  r  had  to  disappear  ; 
compare  pere,  mere,  frere,  from  patrevi,  ma- 
treni,  fratreni.  Fourth,  the  final  a  had,  as 
usual,  to  be  reduced  to  e :  table  from  tabula, 
lune  from  liDia,  etc. 

Through  these  changes  which  are  constant  in 
the  French  language,  we  have  successively  the 
forms :  chaiere,  chaere,  chaire,  from  which  the 
English  chair. 

The  Latin  verb  sed-ere,  to  sit,  makes  in  the 
supine  sessnni,  from  which  the  substantive  sessio 
(-onis)  is  formed,  and  our  session,  namely  a 
'sitting'  of  an  assembly  or  other  body. 

Is  it  not  clear?  'Session,'  'cathedral,'  and 
'  chair '  are  all  from  one  and  the  same  Aryan 


76  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

root  {sad),  however  strange  it  may  seem  at 
first. 

Is  there  any  connection  between  tile  and 
detective  ?  You  laugh.  I  know  what  you 
mean  :  you  will  say  that  one  covers,  while  the 
other  uncovers.  Good !  ben  trovata  !  But  I 
mean,  is  there  any  philological  connection  ?  is 
there  any  genealogical  relation  between  the  two 
words?  They  are  cousins,  so  to  say.  One,  tile, 
grew  up  in  a  Teutonic  country  ;  the  other  was 
brought  up  on  Latin  soil  and  then  travelled  to 
England,  but  both  of  them  come  from  the  same 
Aryan  parental  root.  Detective,  of  course,  is 
from  the  Latin  preposition  de,  and  the  supine 
tectum  of  the  verb  teg-ere,  to  cover ;  from 
which  we  have  also  '  tegument,'  a  covering. 
Teg-ere  stands  for  stcg-ere,  as  it  can  be  inferred 
from  the  corresponding  forms  steg-ein  in  Greek, 
and  sthag  in  Sanskrit.  Tile  (which  occurs  also  in 
the  form  tigel)  is  in  Anglo-Saxon  tigcle  and  cor- 
responds to  Latin  tcgnla,  also  from  the  root 
teg:  properly  a  covering.  We  find  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  tigel-%vyrlita,  a  tile-wright,  a  potter. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  coin  is  the  same 
word  as  the  French  coin.  But  the  latter  means 
'corner,'  while  the   English  word  is  applied  to 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  77 

old  money.  How  is  this?  Coi]i  is  the  trans- 
formation of  Latin  cioicus,  a  wedge,  and  coins 
were  called  a  certain  kind  of  moneys,  that  were 
stamped  with  a  wedge.  The  word,  transported 
into  English,  dropped  out  of  the  living  and 
familiar  language  ;  it  became,  so  to  say,  a  fossil 
word,  used  merely  as  a  definite  scientific  term, 
in  accordance  with  its  old  meaning.  In  French, 
where  it  had  become  a  familiar  word,  it  under- 
went some  of  those  modifications  of  meaning 
which  are  common  with  all  living  words. 
It  came  to  be  applied  not  only  to  wedges  and 
moneys  stamped  with  a  wedge,  but  to  any 
angular  form,  to  the  angle  of  two  walls,  to  a 
corner. 

I  am  sure  you  would  be  surprised  and  amused, 
had  we  to  go  over  our  dictionary  together,  and 
pick  up  at  random  some  of  the  most  common 
words,  which,  although  differing  from  each  other 
greatly,  are  to  be  referred  to  the  same  root. 
Take,  for  instance,  aurora  and  combustion. 
Would  you  believe  that  these  words  come  from 
the  same  root  ?  Still  nothing  is  more  certain. 
From  an  Aryan  root  us,  to  burn,  normally 
am[)liated  into  the  form  aus,  we  have  the  Latin 


7^  THE  fORTVh^ES  OF    WORDS. 

aicsosa,  the  archaic  form  of  aurora.  (As  you 
know,  Latin  s,  between  two  vowels,  passes  very 
frequently  into  r :  remember  Jionoris  from  honos, 
/lojiosts,  etc.)  Atirora  means  really  'burning,' 
'  shining.' 

From  the  same  root  tis,  and  with  the  same 
change  of  s  into  r,  we  have  the  Latin  verb 
ur-ere,  to  burn,  which,  however,  shows  its  true 
root  in  its  supine  us-tiim.  This  verb,  with  the 
prefix  combf  equivalent  to  cunt,  gives  the  verb 
combiircrc,  from  whose  supine  covibustujii  we 
have  the  substantive  conibiistio,  -onis,  a  burning 
up,  a  '  combustion.' 

It  is  also  a  fact  that  altar  and  origin  come 
from  the  same  root.  Altar,  Latin  altare,  akin 
with  altus,  high,  is  from  the  root  ar  (-al),  to 
raise.  From  this  same  root  we  have  the  Greek 
verb  '  or-nymi,'  to  raise,  to  stir  up,  and  Latin 
or-iri,  to  rise,  to  begin.  From  this  the  sub- 
stantive origo  -mis  is  derived,  a  *  rising,'  a 
'  beginning,'  an  '  origin.' 

The  root  i  of  the  verb  ire,  to  go,  gives  birth 
to  so  different  words  as  '  initial '  and  '  count.' 
From  ill-ire,  to  go  into,  to  enter,  to  begin,  we 
have  in-itiuin,  a  begicining,  and  the  adjective 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    IVORDS.  79 

initial.  From  aim-ire,  to  go  together,  we 
have  coju-ifem,  '  that  goes  together,'  a  '  com- 
panion,' whence  French  covitc,  and  English 
count.  The  count  was  the  companion,  the 
follower  of  the  prince  or  duke. 

Practically,  a  surgeon  and  a.  gardener  have  not 
much  in  common.  But  philologically  they  are 
consanguineous.  '  Surgeon  '  is  a  corruption 
from  cJiirurgcon.  We  find  the  forms  ciriirgian, 
Old  French  cirurgien,  Modern  French  chirnr- 
gien.  It  comes  from  the  Greek  cheirourgos, 
from  chciro — {cJieir,  the  hand),  and  ergein,  to 
work  ;  the  physician  that  works  with  his  hands, 
that  performs^  as  we  put  it  nowadays,  "  practi- 
cal operations."  This  word  chcir,  the  hand,  is 
from  an  Aryan  root  ghar,  to  seize,  to  hold,  to 
grasp,  to  enclose.  From  this  same  root  we 
have  the  German  'garten,'  and  the  English 
'garden,'  whose  primitive  meaning  was  simply 
an  'enclosure,'  an  'enclosed  patch  of  ground.' 
'Gardener,'  of  course,  is  a  direct  filiation  from 
'garden.' 

We  associate  the  idea  of  intoxication  with 
that  of  wine  or  liquor.  But,  strange  to  say, 
the  word  is  derived   from  the  Greek  name  of 


^ 


80  T//£  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

the  bow.  The  bow  in  Greek  is  called  toxon ; 
toxa  were  the  arrows ;  tokikdn,  (Latin  toxicuni) 
was  called  a  poison  with  which  the  arrows  were 
smeared.  In  other  languages  this  word  toxicon 
was  applied  to  all  kinds  of  poison  ;  •  toxicology  ' 
is  the  branch  of  medicine  that  studies  poisons. 
In  English  we  have  applied  its  derivations 
(*  intoxication  '  and  '  intoxicate')  to  that  particu- 
lar kind  of  poisoning  which  is  due  to  the  abuse 
of  wine  or  other  alcoholic  beverage. 

Temple  and  a7iato7)iy  have  also  a  common 
origin.  Latin  teniphun,  from  an  original  tevi- 
uhini,  is,  like  the  Greek  tem-enos,  from  the  root 
tmn,  to  cut.  It  was  at  first  a  piece  of  ground  cut 
off  for  religious  purposes,  a  sacred  enclosure. 
From  this  same  root  we  have  the  Greek  verb 
teni-no,  to  cut ;  toin-e,  a  section,  a  part  of  a  work ; 
and,  with  the  prefix  a7id,  anatomy,  a  cutting  up, 
a  dis-secting. 

The  same  communion  of  birth  may  be  traced 
out  in  tide  and  demon.  Dacvion  in  Latin,  dai- 
inon  in  Greek,  did  not  mean  an  evil  spirit,  but 
a  god.  The  word  is  formed  from  the  root  da, 
to  divide,  to  distribute ;  daemon  was  the  dis- 
tributing,  the   ruling  power.     It   was   only   in 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  8i 

progress  of  time  (very  likely  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Christian  ideas)  that  the  name  of 
heathen  gods  was  applied  to  malignant  spirits, 
to  infernal  deities. 

From  the  same  root  da,  which  in  the  Teu- 
tonic family  assumes  the  form  ta,  we  have, 
among  others,  the  word  tide,  which  at  first 
meant  a  division,  a  portion  of  time,  then  espe- 
cially that  portion  of  time  that  intervenes  be- 
tween the  flux  and  the  reflux  of  the  sea ;  fin- 
ally it  was  applied  to  the  flux  and  reflux  itself. 
It  corresponds  exactly  to  the  German  Zcit 
(compare   tzvo  and   zwei ;   ten   and   zehii ;  etc.) 

Again,  the  same  connection  can  be  shown  to 
exist  between  domestic  and  timber.  Domestic, 
as  you  know,  is  from  Latin  domus,  a  house,  and 
this  from  the  root  dam,  to  build.  This  root  is 
in  the  Teutonic  family  tarn  which,  with  the 
sufifix  ra,  gives  us  a  word  like  tam-ra  or  tem-ra, 
meaning  '  material  for  building.'  From  this 
we  have  the  Danish  tommer,  the  Swedish  tim- 
mer,  and,  with  the  excrescence  of  a  ^  (quite 
common  between  m  and  r),  the  English  timber. 
In  the  same  way  is  formed  the  German  Zim- 
mer  (compare    two  and    zivei ;    tide  and   Zeit, 


\j^.-^i^ryJ  - 


82  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

etc.)  The  fact  that  a  word  meaning 'building 
material'  has  been  restricted  to  signify  wood, 
throws  no  little  light  upon  the  life  of  the  an- 
cient Teutons,  the  nature  of  their  dwellings  and 
surroundings. 

Not  many  would  be  able  to  discover  any 
connection  between  symposiiiDi  ^nA  poison.  But 
these  two  words  come  also  from  the  same  root. 
There  is  an  Aryan  root  pa  which  means  to 
drink.  It  occurs  in  Latin  and  Greek  under  the 
form  po.  From  it  we  have  the  Greek  po-tos, 
a  drink,  and  the  Latin  verb  po-tarc,  to  drink, 
with  the  substantive /^-/z^;^,  and  the  adjective 
po-table,  drinkable. 

We  have  also  the  Greek  substantive  po-sis, 
drink.  With  the  prefix  sun  (syn),  together,  we 
have  symposium,  '  a  drinking  together,'  a  drink- 
ing party,  a  feast.  Poison  is  merely  a  doublet 
of  potion,  and  meant  at  first  any  beverage,  of 
whatever  kind.  Poison  is  the  French  for  Latin 
potio  {^iCcnsTii'wc poiionem),  just  as  sationeni  has 
given  saison. 

Sometimes  I  am  afraid  you  wonder  why  I 
quote  Aryan  roots  with  the  vowel  a  (as  tarn, 
sad,  pa)    and    then    I     give    their    representa- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  83 

tives  in  Latin  and  Greek  with  other  vowels,  c, 
0  (torn,  sed,  po).  In  fact,  it  is  so.  As  to 
this  point,  I  beg  you  to  trust  me  without 
demonstration.  Here  too,  in  these  changes  of 
vowels, there  are  general  principles  and  analo- 
gies, but  it  would  take  me  entirely  too  far  if  I 
should  attempt  to  explain  them  at  length. 
Therefore  I  beg  you  to  be  satisfied  that,  on  this 
as  well  as  on  any  other  point,  I  never  assert 
anything  without  being  able  to  produce  sub- 
stantial proofs  of  my  assertion. 

When  you  hear  or  read  of  '  a  buxom  lady,' 
did  you  ever  ask  yourself  where  this  buxom 
comes  from,  and  whether  it  has  always  had  the 
same  meaning  ?  We  have  in  Anglo-Saxon  the 
verb  bug-ail,  to  bend,  to  bow.  And  as  from  wiu 
we  have  winsome,  we  have,  from  the  stem  of 
bugan,  bug-some,  ox  buxom,  whose  original  mean- 
ing therefore  was  '  bowing,'  '  obedient,'  '  grace- 
ful,' and  also  '  good-humored.'  From  this  the 
present  meaning  was  gradually  and  naturally 
developed. 

This  root  bug  is  in  the  Aryan  mother-tongue 
bhugh,  which  must  become  in  Latin  fug  (com- 


84  THE  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS. 

pare  fid  from  bhid,  fer  from  bliar,  etc.),  from 
which  we  have  the  verb  fug-ere,  to  bend,  to  give 
way,  to  turn  to  flight.  Hence  fugitive  and 
buxom  come  from  the  same  Aryan  root. 

Where  does  syllable  come  from  ?  It  is  in  Old 
French  sillabc,  and  came  to  us  from  Latin  sil- 
laba,  but  it  is  really  a  Greek  word  syl-lab^,  from 
the  prefix  syn,  together,  and  the  root  lab,  to 
seize,  to  hold  together.  '  Syllable  '  is  properly 
that  part  of  a  M^ord  which  'holds  together.' 
From  the  same  root  we  have  such  words  as 
'  catalepsis,'  'epilepsis,  a  sudden  seizure,  a  sud- 
den attack.  '  Syllabus  '  is  a  '  holding  together,' 
a  '  compendium  '  of  principles. 

Deluge  di.n<5i  laundry  come  from  the  same  root. 
'  Laundry  '  is  spelt  in  P.  Plowman  laiicndi-ye, 
and  '  launder  '  is  spelt  lauender.  It  is  evident 
that  they  come  from  the  same  root  as  the  verb 
to  lav-e,  to  wash.  The  root  lau  (just  as  aus 
from  us)  is  an  amplification  of  In,  which  we  have 
in  the  Latin  lu-ere,  to  lave,  di-hi-crc,  to  dilute, 
di-luvium,  deluge,  etc. 

I  am  sure  that  you  will  raise  your  eyebrows 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  85 

a  little  if  I  declare  that  prose  and  verse  come 
from  the  same  root.  But  please  listen  a  mo- 
ment. The  Romans  used  to  call  '  prose  ' 
'  prorsa  oratio,'  that  is  to  say  a  '  direct  speech,' 
straightforward,  not  artificially  arranged.  Prorsa 
is  the  feminine  of  prorsus,  a  contracted  form  of 
prouersns,  '  turned  forward,'  '  straightforward,' 
from  pro,  forward,  and  iiersus,  the  past  partici- 
ple of  the  verb  uertere,  to  turn.  Now  verse  is 
simply  this  same  past  participle  of  uertere,  and 
means  a  '  turning,'  a  '  line.' 

In  English  the  words  derived  from  this  verb 
uert-ere  are  countless  :  ad-vert,  con-vert,  in-vert, 
di-vert,  sub-vert,  re-vert,  per-vert,  a-vert,  with  all 
their  connections  and  derivations. 

Perhaps  it  will  also  be  a  little  surprising  to 
hear  that  hectic  and  sail  descend  from  a  com- 
mon stock.  We  have  an  Aryan  root  sagh,  to 
hold,  to  hold  in,  which  has  in  Greek  the  form 
seek.  From  this  we  should  have  a  form  like 
sec-tic  ;  but  in  Greek,  as  we  know,  the  initial  s 
is  often  replaced  by  an  aspirate  (compare  Latin 
sed,  Greek  hed).  Therefore  we  have  the  form 
hec-tic,  meaning  exactly  '  holding  on,'   '  contin- 


86  THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

ual,'  and  was  said  of  a  fever.  The  transilion  to 
the  modern  meaning  is  easily  perceived. 

From  this  root  sagJi  we  have  a  Teutonic  type 
seg-la,  '  holding  on,'  *  bearing  up '  against  the 
wind,  whence  German  seg-el,  Icelandish  segl, 
Anglo-Saxon  seg-el,  segl,  Middle  English  sej'/, 
sell,  English  sail. 

To  put  an  end  to  this  long,  entirely  too  long 
letter,  let  me  explain  how  so  different  words  as 
economy,  parish,  village  and  diocese  come  from 
the  same  parental  root.  From  a  root  uic,  to 
enter,  we  have  in  Sanskrit  vega,  a  house,  and  in 
Greek  voik-os,  afterwards  oikos,  a  house.  From 
the  stem  of  oikos  and  from  that  of  the  verb  nonu'o, 
to  manage,  to  govern,  we  have  eco-nomy,  prop- 
erly *  the  management  of  the  house '  (compare 
German  haiiswirtscJiafi). 

From  this  same  stem  oiko,  and  the  prefix 
dia,  through,  throughout,  we  have  the  verb 
dioikh,  '  to  keep  house,'  to  conduct,  to  govern, 
and  from  this  the  substantive  dioikesis,  Latin 
dia:cesis,  English  diocese,  an  administration,  a 
province  (the  bishop's  province). 

From  the  same  stem  and  the  prefix  para, 
near,    beside,  we  have  paroikia,  a    '  neighbor- 


THE   FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  87 

hood,'  I.atin  paroccia,  French  paroissc,  Middle 
English  parischc,  English  parish. 

From  the  same  Aryan  root  iiic,  from  which 
we  have  the  Greek  oikos,  we  have  the  Latin 
uic-iis,  which  was  said  of  a  street  among  houses, 
and  of  the  houses  themselves  ;  a  hamlet,  a  vil- 
lage. From  this  iiic-us  we  have  the  diminutive 
uic-ula,  a  country  seat ;  from  this,  uic-la,  and 
then  villa  (compare  sella  from  sed-ida,  scd-la ; 
Stella  from  ster-nla,  etc.).  From  villa  we  have 
village,  villain.,  etc.  We  must  also  remember 
that  our  vuick,  a  town,  and  the  Anglo-Saxon 
zvic,  a  village,  a  town,  are  mere  transformations 
of  the  Latin  iiic-us. 

P.  S. — In  your  last  note  you  ask  me  where 
chaperon,  cojnplexion  and  beauty  come  from. 
I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  answer  your  query ; 
but  first  let  me  remark  that  you  have  betrayed 
your  sex  very  naively.  Anybody,  even  with- 
out looking  at  the  signature,  would  say  that 
such  etymologies  are  asked  by  a  woman  ! 

Chaperon,  as  you  know,  is  a  French  word,  and 
is  connected  with  chape,  Low-Latin  capa,  a  cape, 
from  which  we  have  seen  the  verb  '  to  escape ' 


88  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

is  deriv^ed.  Chapcroi  is  properly  a  hood,  a  cap. 
By  a  rather  bold  metaphor,  we  apply  this  name 
to  the  lady  that  protects,  that  escorts  a  young 
lady. 

Complexion  is  from  cum,  together,  and  the 
vcrh plcctere,  to  weave,  to  twine,  to  plait.  Com- 
plexion meant  really  the  texture,  the  structure 
of  the  body,  its  constitution.  In  this  sense  it 
is  used  in  French  and  Italian.  But  as  a  healthy 
or  unhealthy  constitution  is  reflected  in  the 
skin  and  outward  appearance,  the  word  assumed 
by  and  by  the  meaning  which  is  now  current  in 
English. 

The  etymology  of  beauty  is  quite  interesting. 
We  hear  often  philosophers  discuss  about  the 
ideal  connection  of  the  beautiful  with  the  good. 
Whatever  the  opinion  of  philosophers  may  be, 
we  have  in  language  some  striking  facts  that 
should  be  taken  into  account.  We  know  that 
the  Greeks  used  often  kalos  (beautiful)  where  we 
would  use  *  good.'  The  Italians  use  these  words 
in  a  quite  remarkable  way.  They  would  speak, 
for  instance,  of  '  un  bel  stipendio,'  a  beautiful 
salary;  '  un  bel  guadagno,' a  beautiful  (consid- 
erable)  profit ;  '  una  bella  posizione,'  a  beauti- 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  89 

fill  (good)  situation^  while  they  say,  especially 
in  Southern  Italy,  that  a  girl  is  bnona,  '  good,' 
meaning  that  she  is  handsome.  This  same 
intimate  connection  between  good  and  beauti- 
ful appears  from  the  etymology  of  '  beauty.' 
In  Low-Latin,  besides  bonus,  good,  we  find  the 
adjective  bcniis,  good,  goody,  from  the  adverb 
bene.  This  bemis,  has  a  diminutive  benit/us, 
goody,  pretty.  And  as  from  sterula  we  have 
Stella,  from  sedula  sella,  from  cniiula  ciilla, 
benulus  has  given  bellns,  pretty,  whence  the 
Italian  bello,  beautiful.  From  belliis  we  have 
the  abstract  bellitas  (accusative  bellitateni)  from 
which  the  Old  French  beltct,  bealteit  and  (as 
alba  gives  aube,  alt{e)riuH  gives  autre,  etc.) 
beaute.  Hence  Middle  English  beaute,  English 
beauty. 

So  that  beauty  can  strictly  be  said  to  be  a 
doublet  of  bounty,  as  this  is  from  bonitas,  good- 
ness, the  abstract  from  bonus,  good. 

A  propos  of  doublets,  I  want  to  call  your 
attention  to  two  others  that  well  illustrate  how 
words  change  in  shape  and  meaning,  still  being 
connected  by  the  thread  of  a  fundamental  idea. 
The  Latin  verb  re-or  means  to  think,  to  judge, 


9°  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

to  reckon,  and  from  its  past  rains  wc  have  the 
substantive  ratio  that  was  applied  to  the  fac- 
ulty of  judging,  of  reckoning,  as  well  as'  to  the 
judging  and  reckoning  itself.  As  from  Latin 
satiotiem  we  have  French  saison  and  English 
seasofi,  from  rationcm  we  have  French  raison 
and  English  reaso?i. 

But  this  same  word  ratio  {-07iem),  came  also 
to  be  used  in  a  certain  technical  way,  and  to 
denote  the  measuring  out  his  share  of  victuals 
to  each  soldier,  the  reckoning  to  what  each 
soldier  is  entitled  according  to  the  abundance 
or  dearth  of  supplies,  as  well  as  the  share  itself. 
In  this  sense  the  word  remained,  so  to  say, 
petrified  in  the  military  language,  and  was 
saved  from  the  usual  modifications  of  words 
belonging  to  general  use.  It  preserved  the  form 
razione  in  Italian,  ration  in  French,  from  which 
it  has  been  directly  imported  into  English. 

Mathematicians  use  still  another  form  of  this 
word.  While  both  reason  and  ration  are  derived 
from  the  accusative  of  the  Latin  word,  they 
have  taken  simply  the  nominative  ratio  and 
use  it  to  mean  a  calculation,  the  relation  of  one 
thing  to  another. 


NINTH  LETTER. 

Common  Words  Derived  from  Local  or  Personal  Names — 
Names  of  Trees,  Animals,  Minerals,  Fabrics  and  Money 
— Influence  of  the  Arabs,  the  Flemings.and  the  Italians — 
Lumber,  cravat,  spencer,   sandwich,  dollar,  tariff,  etc. 


YOU  know  already  that  all  local  names  were 
once  common  names  ;  Oxford,  for  instance, 
was  the  ford  of  the  oxen ;  '  Thames '  meant 
'broad  water,'  etc.  But  the  reverse  is  equally 
true,  that  many  of  our  common  words  are 
derived  from  local  or  personal  names.  This  is 
especially  true  of  many  of  our  fruit-trees,  of 
our  minerals,  of  our  fabrics,  and  moneys. 

The  Avord  peach,  for  instance,  is  in  Old 
French  pcschc,  in  Italian  pesco  or  persico,  in 
Spanish /ms-4^^,  in  Latin /r;-5?"<r//;//,  and  reminds 
us  of  the  Persian  origin  of  the  tree.  The 
'  chestnut,'  French  chdtaignc  or  chastatgne, 
Italian  castagno,  comes  from  Castancca,  a  city 
in  Thessaly.  'Currants'  were  once  called 
'corinths,'  from  the  city  of  Corinth.  'Jalap' 
comes   from    Jalapa,    a    province    of    Mexico ; 


92  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

'  coffee '  from  the  mountain  Caffa,  south  of 
Abyssinia  ;  '  Mocha,'  '  Portorico,'  and  many 
names  of  spices,  are  plainly  local  names,  '  To- 
bacco '  is  the  name  of  an  island  where  the 
famous  weed  grows  well.  The  Falernian,  the 
Chianti,  the  Madeira,  Cape,  Champagne,  Bur- 
gundy, Chablis,  Sauterne,  Medoc,  Asti,  Tokay, 
Malaga,  Marsala,  Xeres  (Sherry),  and  several 
other  wines  are  called  after  local  names. 

Of  our  animals,  the  '  guinea-pig '  and  the 
*  canary-bird  *  owe  their  names,  as  it  is  evident, 
to  Guinea  and  the  Canary  Islands.  The 
'  pheasant,'  Latin  at't's  pJiasiana,  was  imported 
from  the  banks  of  the  Phasis,  a  river  in  Colchis. 
The  greyhound  is  the  'Grecian  dog,'  *  canis 
grains.'  A  '  barb  '  was  a  horse  imported  from 
Barbary.  Angolas,  Cashmeres,  Newfound- 
lands, etc.,  need  no  explanation. 

'  Copper,'  Latin  cuprinn,  owes  its  name  to 
the  Cyprus  Island.  '  Loadstone  '  is  a  corruption 
of  a  translation  from  Lydins  lapis,  the  stone 
from  Lydia.  From  Crete  the  Romans  derived 
their  crcta,  a  kind  of  pipe-clay  used  for  seals. 
Creta  is  still  used  in  Italian  and  has  given  in 
French  craie,  from  which  our  '  clay.' 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  93 

Many  chemical  substances  have  been  named 
after  local  names.  *  Ammonia,'  for  instance, 
and  '  sal  ammoniacum,'  remind  us  of  the  Ly- 
bian  desert  where  the  priests  of  Jupiter  Ammon 
used  to  prepare  it  in  large  quantities. 

As  to  the  names  of  our  fabrics,  we  must 
distinguish  three  periods  in  the  history  of  the 
middle  ages  :  first  the  Arabs  were  the  most 
excellent  and  celebrated  workers ;  then  this 
glory  seemed  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  the 
Flemings,  and  later  of  the  wealthy  Italian 
republics.  As  a  consequence,  we  have  three 
classes  of  names  of  our  fabrics :  one  of  Arabic, 
the  second  of  Dutch,  and  the  third  of  Italian 
origin. 

Muslin,  French  viousseline,  owes  its  name  to 
MoHssul,  a  city  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
eastern  capital  of  the  Caliphs.  Gmizc,  French 
gaze,  Spanish  gaza,  was  made  at  Gaza.  Fus- 
tian, Italian  fiistagno,  is  from  Fostat,  a  suburb 
of  Cairo.  The  damask  silk  and  the  '  Damas- 
cus'  swords  and  the  'Toledo'  blades  clearly 
indicate  their  local  origin. 

With  the  decay  of  Arabian  industry  and 
power,  the  manufactures  of  the  Flemings  came 


94  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

into  prominence.  Cambric,  French  cambrai, 
was  so  called  from  Cambrai.  Diapre,  formerly 
written  d'ipre,  or  d'ypres,  was  made  at  Yprcs. 
So  wc  have  Lisle  thread,  Arras  tapestry,  Brus- 
sels carpets  ;  and  from  the  Walloons  we  have 
galloon,  that  is  Walloon  lace. 

From  Italian  industry  we  have  fiddles  of 
'Cremona,'  Paduasoy  or  Padua  silk,  the  scent 
called  Berijamot,  from  the  city  of  Bergamo. 
Milliners  and  mantua-makers  are  so  called  from 
Milan  (Milaners)  and  Mantua. 

Lombards,  generally  money-lenders  and 
pawn-shoppers,  gave  the  name  to  Lombard 
Street  in  London.  In  French,  Loinbard  means 
pawn-broker.  "  The  English  '  lumber-room  ' 
is  the  Lombard-room,  the  room  where  the 
Lombard  pawn-brokers  stored  their  unre- 
deemed pledges.  Hence,  after  a  time,  furni- 
ture stowed  away  in  an  unused  chamber  came 
to  be  called  lumber,"  and  lumbering  fellow 
is  a  useless,  clumsy  man. 

The  word  '  cravat '  we  have  from  the  Cravatcs 
or  Croats  as  they  are  now  called.  "  There  was 
a  French  regiment  of  light  horse  called  Me 
royal  cravate '  because  it    was  attired    in  the 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  95 

Croat  fashion,  and  the  word  cravat  was  intro- 
duced in  1636  when  the  necktie  worn  by  these 
troops  became  the  mode." 

Bayonets  were  so  called  because  they  were 
first  made  in  Bayonne,  from  1650  to  1660. 
Carabine,  as  the  old  Italian  form  calabrino 
indicates,  comes  from  Calabria. 

Spencers  and  Sandiviches  owe  their  names  to 
the>r  inventors.  Lord  Spencer  and  Lord  Sand- 
wich, "two  noble  earls,"  as  a  contemporaneous 
epigram  says : 

"  The  one  invented  half  a  coat, 
The  other,  half  a  dinner. 
The  plan  was  good,  as  some  will  say, 

And  fitted  to  console  one, 
Because  in  this  poor  starving  day. 

Few  can  afford  a  whole  one." 

Many  names  of  coins  have  also  been  proper 
names.  The  guinea  was  first  made  with  gold 
brought  from  Guinea.  The  y?^7'/«  was  struck 
at  Florence ;  the  dollar  is  a  corruption  of  the 
German  tJialer,  which  was  so  called  after  the 
valley  {thai)  of  Joachim  in  Bohemia,  whence  the 
silver  was  taken  to  make  it.  The  mark  was  a 
Venetian  coin,  stamped  with  the  lion  of  St. 
Mark. 


96  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

Other  moneys  owe  their  names  to  their 
stamps:  a  shilHng  bore  the  device  of  a  shield, 
and  the  sciido  of  a  scutiun.  An  eagle,  an  angel, 
a  kreutzer,  bear  respectively  the  American 
eagle,  an  angel  and  a  cross.  The  American 
who  says,  "  I  don't  care  a  continental,"  sums 
up  a  good  deal  of  history  in  a  few  words. 

Sometimes  names  of  nations  become  com- 
mon names.  Vandals,  vandalism,  vandalic, 
owe  their  origin  and  signification  to  the  wan- 
ton cruelty  and  destruction  of  works  of  art  by 
the  Vandals. 

*  Slave,'  '  Slavonic,'  had  at  first  a  purely  eth- 
nological meaning.  But,  as  the  stronger  Teu- 
tonic races  used  to  supply  themselves  with 
slaves  from  these  weaker  neighbors,  slave  came 
to  have  the  meaning  of  a  man  deprived  of  his 
liberty,  property  of  another. 

The  zouaves  owe  their  name  to  the  Shawi,  a 
tribe  of  desert  nomads,  who  were  enlisted  by 
the  French  after  their  Algerian  conquest. 

The  origin  of  the  word  tariff,  I  am  sure  many 
free-traders   will   be    glad  to   know.     Moorish 


THE   FORTUXES  OF    WORDS.  97 

pirates  used  to  sally  forth  from  Tarifa  to  plun- 
der the  vessels  passing  through  the  straits  of 
Gibraltar.  After  a  time  they  contented  them- 
selves (and  they  found  it  paid)  with  levying  a 
heavy  tax  on  the  navigators  that  fell  into  their 
clutches.  This  sort  of  tax  was  called  from 
where  it  was  collected  '  tariff.' 

Very  interesting  also  would  be  a  collection 
of  common  words  derived  from  personal  names. 
Such  are,  for  instance,  herculean,  from  Her- 
cules ;  hermetic,  from  Hermes  ;  tantalize,  from 
Tantalus  ;  chimerical,  from  Chimaera  ;  mauso- 
leum, from  Mausolus  ;  philippic,  from  Demos- 
thenes' famous  orations  against  King  Philip  ; 
tontine  system  of  insurance  from  the  Italian 
Tonti ;  galvanism,  voltaic,  mesmerism,  dalto- 
nism, guillotine,  from  Galvani,  Volta,  Mesmer, 
Dalton,  Dr.  Guillotine  ;  quixotic,  from  the  hero 
of  Cervantes's  masterpiece  ;  rodomontade  from 
Rodomonte,  one  of  the  characters  of  Ariosto's 
poem  ;  renard,  the  French  word  for  fox,  from 
the  mediaeval  epic  of  Reynard  the  Fox  ;  hec- 
toring, from  Hector;  pasquinade,  from  Pasquino, 
a  popular  Roman  satyrist  ;  and  finally  let  us 
not  forget  'lynch,"  from  the  summary  proceed- 


9^  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

ings  of  master  John  Lynch,  nor  *  boycot  '  and 
'  boycotting,'  from  the  name  of  the  Irish  gen- 
tleman who  was  the  first  to  suffer  from  this 
new  form  of  ostracism. 


TENTH  LETTER. 

The  new  method  of  Language-Study  and  the  ways  of  old 
Etymologists  compared. — Instances  of  their  vagaries — 
Skinner,  Menage,  Blackstone,  etc. 


AS  a  curious  as  well  as  instructive  diversion, 
let  us  look  back  a  moment  at  the  methods 
adopted  and  results  achieved  by  the  etymolo- 
gists of  the  old  school,  namely,  when  etymology 
was  not  a  science,  and  linguistic  laws  were  a 
thing  unknown.  Modern  etymology  is  not 
satisfied  until  it  has  found  out  the  first  starting 
point  of  the  word  — the  root — and  then  fol- 
lowed it  downward,  step  by  step.  Old 
etymologists,  on  the  contrary,  had  no  idea  of 
roots,  and  when  they  had  discovered, or  thought 
to  have  discovered,  a  genealogical  connection 
between  two  words,  they  did  not  search  for  the 
connecting  links,  but  simply  imagined  them. 
Thus  a  presupposed  etymology  was  made  to 
rest,  not  on  facts,  but  on  imaginations.  The 
results  must  inevitably  be  often  false,  some- 
times ludicrous,  never  certain. 


lOO  THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

The  French  fusil,  for  instance,  Italian  y>/^z7i', 
is  derived  from  focilc,  the  Italian  word  for 
'  flint.'  Focile  must  be  brought  back  to  focus, 
fire.  The  suf^x  -ilc  is  quite  common  in  Italian 
a n d  L a t i n .  Focile,  then,  or  fucile,  F re n c h  fusil, 
meant  at  first  simply  '  flint,'  and  reminds  us  of 
the  '  flint-lock  '  of  the  first  guns.  M(^nage,  in 
his  etymological  dictionary,  derives  it  from 
focus-elicio,  as  if  it  were  foci-elicium,  that  is 
'  fire-eliciting.'  He  says,  however,  it  may  also 
be  derived  {xoxv,  feu-sil,  where /rzMs  the  French 
word  for  '  fire,'  and  sil,  he  explains,  is  a  con- 
traction from  cxsilire,  to  jump  out,  to  spring 
out ;  "quod  ex  eius  et  lapidis  attritu  ignis 
exsiliat,"  because  fire  springs  out  of  the  friction 
of  the  gun  on  the  stone.  In  what  way  the 
'  French*  word /^z^  could  be  combined  with  the 
'  Latin  '  exsilire,  and  how  exsilirc  could  give  sil, 
or  how  focus-elicio  or  foci-elicium  was  changed 
into  '  fusil,'  he  does  not  take  the  trouble  to 
explain. 

Another  instance.  The  word  frigate  is  of 
doubtful  etymology;  Diez  would  derive  it  from 
Italian  fabricata,  but  this  is  by  no  means  cer- 
tain.    But   these  difificulties  did    not    frighten 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  loi 

etymologists  of  the  old  school.  According  to 
Menage,  '  frigate  '  is  derived  from  renins,  the 
Latin  word  for  '  oar.'  From  rcinus,\\e  says,  we 
had  the  forms  '  remicus,'  '  remicatus,'  '  recatus,' 
'  frecatus,' '  fregata  ! '  Of  course,  not  one  of  these 
forms  has  ever  existed.  Here,  as  I  said,  is  the 
great  difference  :  modern  linguistics  bases  its 
researches  and  inductions  on  the  forms  which 
really  exist  or  have  existed ;  old  etymologists 
simply  '  imagined  '  any  form  to  suit  their 
fancies.  And  then,  how  from  recatus  we  pass 
over  to  fregata,  it  is  not  explained  :  no  trouble 
is  taken  to  explain  this  phenomenal  addition  of 
an  initial  f. 

To  derive  frigate  from  renins  is  hardly  better 
etymology  than  to  derive,  as  playful  Swift  sug- 
gests, 'ostler'  from  'oat-stealer,*  or  'breeches' 
from  '  bear-riches.'  Still,  in  other  cases, 
Menage  seems  to  have  surpassed  himself. 
That  cunning  animal  which  is  known  to  us  as 
*  fox,'  is  called  by  the  French  renard.  The 
origin  of  this  name  affords  a  curious  insight 
into  the  strange  manifold  elements  that  concur 
to  the  making  of  our  living  speech.  In  a 
famous    poem    of    the    middle    ages,    animals, 


I02  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

instead  of  men,  are  the  personages,  and  are 
called  by  various  names.  One  of  them  is  the 
fox,  and  is  called  Rcnart.  The  poem  became 
so  popular,  and  this  word  '  renart '  so  familiar, 
that  by  and  by  it  superseded  entirely  the  old 
name  of  the  fox.  But  Manage  has  another 
etymology  of  his  own :  he  derives  '  renard ' 
from  raposo,  the  Spanish  name  for  '  fox.'  We 
had,  he  says,  '  raposus,'  '  raposinus,'  '  rasinus,' 
'  rasinardus,'  '  ranardus,'  '  renard  ' ! 

*  Denizen  '  is  from  an  Old  French  word,  deins, 
meaning  'within.'  The  Low  Latin  de  intus 
went  through  these  successive  forms,  all  of 
them  historically  true:  'd'einz,'  '  d'ens,'  'dens,' 
'dans.'  In  'denizen  '  we  have  also  the  sufifix 
-€71,  Old  French  -ei7i,  Latin  -anus ;  compare 
'  vilein,'  '  villanus,'  etc.  So  that  'denizen' 
means  properly  'inhabitant,'  and  in  the  provi- 
sions of  the  city  of  London  it  was  used  as  op- 
posed to  '  foreign.'  But  Skinner,  in  his  "  Ety- 
mologicon  Linguse  Anglicanae,"  derives  it  from 
'  Dane's  son,'  that  is,  son  or  descendant  from 
the  Danes,  because,  he  explains,  the  Danes  had 
once  been  very  powerful  in  England  and  had 
conquered  the  other  inhabitants.     Blackstone 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  103 

derives  '  denizen  '  from  ex  donatione  regis,  '  by 
the  gift  of  the  King.' 

'Mors,*"  as  well  as  '  mortal,' is  derived  from 
the  root  '  Jfiar,'  which  means  to  mar,  to  bruise, 
to  kill.  But  it  was  once  derived  from  'amarus,' 
because  it  is  bitter;  or  also  'a  morsu  vetiti 
pomi,'  from  the  biting  of  the  forbidden 
apple,  as  that  was  the  cause  of  universal 
death. 

Where  does  'girl'  come  from?  We  find  in 
Middle  English  the  forms  ger/,  girl,  and 
gurl,  used  for  either  sex,  a  young  man  or 
woman.  In  Old  Low  German  we  find  gor,  a 
child,  from  which,  with  the  suf^x  la,  we  have 
the  diminutive  form  gbrla.  But  where  does  gor 
itself  come  from  ?  We  do  not  know.  It  is  a 
good  sign  for  a  science  to  know  its  own  limit- 
ations. The  old  etymologists,  though,  had  no 
difficulty,  not  even  in  this  case.  They  said  that 
'  girl '  was  from  the  Latin  '  garrula,'  loquacious  ! 

'Crypt,'  which  is  connected  with  the  Greek 
krypto,  to  conceal,  was  derived  from  cry-pit ; 
somebody  was  thrown  into  a  '  pit,' where,  of 
course,  he  '  cried  ' ! 

Rocer  Asham  derives  '  war '  from  '  warre  '  or 


I04  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

'  vverse,'  the  old  form  of  the  comparative 
'  worse,'  "because  war  is  tvorse  than  peace." 

Also  a  queer  etymology  was  giv^n  of  the 
word  '  demijohn.'  This  kind  of  vessel  is  called 
in  Italian  '  damigiana,'  and  owes  its  name  to  the 
city  of  Damaghan,  in  Persia,  once  famous  for 
its  glassworks.  In  French  it  is  called  '  dame- 
jeanne,'  which  literally  means  '  Lady  Jane.' 
Hence  a  mythical  Lady  Jane  was  invented  to 
explain  this  little  mythical  and  less  poetical 
*  demijohn.' 

I  might  easily  fill  pages  with  instances  of  the 
vagaries  which  were  once  given  as  etymologies. 
But  those  I  have  given  are  enough,  I  think,  to 
show  the  difference  from  the  methods  of  mod- 
ern research. 


ELEVENTH    LETTER. 

Application  of  Linguistic  to  Prehistoric  Studies. — Primitive 
Nature  of  Human  Tools  and  Dwellings  as  ihown  by  their 
Names. — Cooking,  Grinding,  Weaving,  Wrilitig. — Books 
and  Book  Making:  Parchment,  Paper,  etc. — The  Limbs 
of  our  Body  and  their  Names  ;  the  Head,  the  Hand,  the 
Nose,  the  Eye,  etc. 


THUS  far  I  have  only  given  you  stories  of 
words  whose  sounds  and  meanings  have 
considerably  changed  from  their  original  ones. 
But  interesting  as  etymologies  may  be,  I  would 
be  sorry  if  you  should  think  that  this  is  the 
whole  aim  and  object  of  glottology.  To  trace 
out  the  origin  of  the  sounds  which  are  the 
means  of  our  daily  intercourse  with  our  fellow 
men  is,  indeed,  a  study  of  no  little  importance. 
Still,  this  is  only  one  object  of  glottology,  which 
really  aims,  or  should  aim,  at  a  complete  study 
of  language  in  all  its  bearings,  historical,  ethno- 
graphical and  psychological.  It  is  certain,  for 
instance,  that  the  primitive  history  of  the  Ar- 
yan nations,  their  original   abode,  their  migra- 


Io6  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

tions,  their  relations  to  one  another,  would 
never  have  been  clear  but  for  the  light  afforded 
.by  linguistic  researches.  There  are  few  prob- 
lems in  the  history  of  man  which  the  science 
of  language  docs  not  contribute  to  solve,  or  at 
least  bring  near  to  a  solution. 

How  much  has  been  said  and  written  about 
the  primitive  state  of  man  !  How  much  non- 
sense uttered  !  What  a  painful  and  almost 
ludicrous  groping  in  the  dark  !  Now  we  learn 
from  palaeontology  that  civilization  had  every- 
where the  most  rude  and  imperfect  beginnings; 
the  habitations  of  men  were  of  the  simplest 
kind — dens,  in  fact,  not  much  superior  to  those 
of  the  wild  beasts.  Their  tools  were  like  those 
of   the  lowest  savages. 

In  these  prehistoric  studies,  palaeontology 
and  glottology  go  hand  in  hand.  In  the  case 
of  the  Aryan  family,  where  linguistic  docu- 
ments have  been  studied  with  the  greatest  dili- 
gence, glottology  can  even  teach  us  more  than 
palaeontology.  If  the  latter  can  display  the 
tools  of  stone,  testimony  to  a  rude  and  primi- 
tive age,  the  former  can  lead  us  a  step  further 
back    and   give,  through   the   study    of   words, 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  107 

evidence  of  a  state  where  not  even  such  miser- 
able utensils  helped  the  toil  of  the  primitive 
Aryans  and  no  comfort  of  houses  or  devices  of 
arts  gave  warmth  and  joy  to  their  dreary  lives. 
Let  us  see  first  what  words  relating  to  dwell- 
ing can  tell  us.  Every  body  would  naturally 
suppose  that  at  the  bottom  of  words  meaning 
'house  '  there  is  to  be  found  a  root  conveying 
the  idea  of  building,  constructing,  or  the  like. 
In  truth,  however,  no  ancient  name  for*  house  ' 
refers  to  any  such  idea.  All  of  them  mean 
simply  to  '  cover,'  to  '  shelter,'  or  to  '  be,'  to 
'  stay,'  or  to  '  bring  together/  to  '  bind,'  thus 
giving  evidence  of  a  time  when  the  idea  of 
'  house  '  or  '  dwelling '  did  not  imply  the  idea 
of  construction,  but  was  anything  that  could 
afford  a  shelter,  a  cavern,  a  den.  House,  Ger- 
man Jiaus,  homf,  heini,  are  very  likely  from  a 
root  ku  (Teutonic  form  liii)  meaning  to  cover, 
to  shelter.  The  Latin  donms  and  Greek  domos 
are  from  a  root  dajii,  which  means  to  '  bind,' 
and  only  later  seems  to  have  acquired  the 
meaning  of  'building.'  The  Swedish  bo,  by, 
village,  English  by  (as  in  by-law,  properly  a 
local  law,  a  town-law,  and  in  Whit-by,  Der-by, 


io8  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

etc.),  High  Old  German  bur,  to  inhabit,  bu, 
house,  conveyed  originally  no  other  idea  but 
that  of  settling  down,  of  staying.  Latin  Jiortus, 
German  gartcn,  English  garden,  yard,  mean 
simply  'enclosure.' 

Another  element  very  important  in  man's 
life,  beside  his  habitation,  is  his  nourishment. 
The  varied  methods  of  our  cooking  can  be  re- 
duced to  a  special  form,  of  which  all  the  others 
may  be  said  to  be  mere  modifications  :  namely, 
cooking  food  in  a  vessel  filled  with  water.  In 
other  words,  the  most  important  process  in  our 
culinary  art  is  '  boiling.'  Simple  as  it  may 
seem  to  us,  it  has  not  been  learned,  however, 
until  after  centuries  of  ruder  experiments.  We 
read  of  peoples  who  eat  their  meat  raw  ;  others 
there  are  who  cook,  as  best  they  can,  the  flesh 
of  animals  by  keeping  it  between  two  hot 
stones.  Others  have  gone  a  step  further :  they 
make,  with  the  skin  of  the  killed  animal,  a 
kind  of  vessel  or  pot,  into  which  they  put  the 
flesh  and  water;  then  the)''  bring  it  to  an  im- 
perfect ebullition  by  throwing  into  it  heated 
stones.  One  step  further  still,  and  we  find 
pots  made  with  bark  of  trees  and  covered  with 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  109 

clay.  Later  on,  the  bark  is  dropped,  only  the 
clay  remains:  we  have  thus  the  earthenware, 
into  which  water  is  poured,  and  heated  by  fire 
in  the  usual  way.  These  are  the  successive 
steps  in  the  evolution  of  cooking.  Does  lan- 
guage show  any  trace  of  such  gradual  develop- 
ment in  the  Indo-European  family?  Of  course 
we  cannot  expect  to  find  in  linguistic  frag- 
ments a  detailed,  minute  exposition  of  facts  ; 
but  that,  on  the  whole,  such  evolution  has 
taken  place,  we  can  clearly  see  by  a  compara- 
tive study  of  the  Indo-European  words  which 
mean  '  cooking.' 

The  root  meaning  '  cooking '  in  Sanskrit  is 
pack,  in  Greek  is  pep.  Both  these  roots  are  de- 
rived from  an  Aryan  xooX.  pak,  whose  primitive 
meaning  "was  to  '  ripen.'  The  verb  pcp-t-cin 
itself  is  still  used  by  Homer  (Odyssey,  7,  119) 
with  the  meaning  of  *  ripen.'  It  is  then  not 
illogical  to  suppose  that,  also  with  the  Aryans, 
at  first  meat  was  simply  exposed  to  the  burn- 
ing rays  of  the  sun  to  make  it  undergo 
the  same  process  which  fruits  on  the  trees  go 
through,  namely,  to  make  it  ripen,  to  bring  it 
to  that    state  of    softness    and  eatableness    to 


no  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WiORDS. 

which  fruits  are  brought  by  natural  matur- 
ing, and  that  it  was  eaten  after  this  simple  per- 
formance. At  length  the  same  result  was 
obtained  with  the  aid  of  fire  instead  of  the 
sun-rays,  and  thus  we  come  to  the  process  of 
roasting  or  boiling,-*  so  common  with  the 
Homeric  heroes.  With  the  advance  of  civil- 
ization, the  verh peptein  and  its  derivations  were 
clothed,  without  changing  their  form,  with  the 
meaning  of  the  subsequently  invented  pro- 
cesses of  making  food  eatable,  just  as  the  word 
artillery,  applied  first  to  bows,  catapults  and 
other  weapons  of  ancient  armies,  was  made 
to  signify  all  the  machines  of  war  introduced 
after  the  invention  of  gunpowder. 

Now,  as  Sanskrit  pancJia  and  Greek  pejite  cor- 
respond to  Latin  quinque,  and  Greek  hippos  cor- 
responds to  Latin  aek-yus ;  in  other  words,  as 
very  often  we  find  a  labial  in  Greek  answering 
to  a  guttural  in  Latin,  we  can  demonstrate  that 
the  Latin  verb  coquo  comes  directly  from  the 
same  KxyTiw  pak,  from  which  the  Sanskrit /rt'r// 
and  the  Greek  pep-t-o  are  derived.  It  follows 
that  our  own  verb  to  '  cook,'  which  of  course 
comes  from  Latin  coquo,  must  be  referred  to 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  m 

the  Aryan  root  whose  priraitive  meaning  was 
to  '  ripen,'  or  cook  in  the  sun's  rays. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  a  Hke  evolution  is  to 
be  observed  in  the  words  meaning  '  cooking'  in 
the  Semitic  and  the  American  languages. 

It  is  but  natural  iiiat  who*!  the  art  of  cook- 
ing was  so  elementary,  the  food  must  also  have 
been  very  simple,  and  n^  many  words  must 
have  been  at  hand'to  designate  it.  In  English 
itself  it  is  not  very'fong  since  the  word  meat 
was  reserved  to  denote'  a  -particular  kind  of 
food.  At  first  it  meant  food  in  general.  But 
the  meanings  of  such  words,  especially  when 
the  art  of  cooking  grows  a  little  complicated, 
change  so  frequently,  and  sometimes  so  capric- 
iously, that  no  further  light  can  be  deduced 
from  them  in  reference  to  the  remote  times  of 
which  we  are  speaking. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  'tools'  which  so 
multiply  the  power  of  man.  Everywhere  in 
language  we  have  permanent  testimonials  that 
all  arts  and  their  tools  have  developed  from 
the  most  rude  implements  slowly  and  labori- 
ously. The  words  connected  with  the  art  of  the 
miller,  for  instance,  (Latin  inol-o,  Greek  viiil-c. 


112  THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS. 

German  iniiJile)  bring  us  back  to  the  root  viar 
or  Dial,  which  means  to  '  rub,'  to  '  bruise,'  thus 
reminding  us  of  the  time  when  cereals  were 
simply  rubbed  between  two  stones. 

It  is  a  grand  sight,  nowadays,  to  behold  one 
of  our  ocean  greyhounds,  frying  majestically 
over  the  sea,  shouldering  and  breaking,  with 
almost  an  air  of  unconcern,  the  raging  billows. 
Who  would  believe  that  these  marvellous  con- 
structions are  the  product  of  a  slow  improve- 
ment from  logs  excavated,  dug  out  in  the  mid- 
dle? Did  we  not  know  it  otherwise,  it  would 
be  abundantly  testified  by  our  own  language. 
Ship,  Anglo-Saxon  scip,  is  from  the  root  skap, 
to  excavate,  to  dig.  From  the  same  root  we 
have  in  Greek  skaf-os,  ship,  and  skuf-os,  glass, 
cup.  We  say  also  '  vessel,'  French  vaisscmi, 
Italian  vascello  (Dante  uses  vaselld),  that  is, 
'vase,'  something  hollowed  inside. 

The  art  of  the  weaver  offers  a  very  interest- 
ing subject  for  linguistic  researches.  The 
fundamental  Aryan  root  is  iia.  It  appears  that 
the  first  things  on  which  men  practised  this  art, 
and  from  which  they  obtained  the  first  idea  of 
it,  are  the  boughs  and  twigs  of  trees  entangled 


THE  FOR  TUNES  OF  WORDS.  i  '  3 

with  each  other.  Little  reeds  and  osiers  were 
called  in  Latin  tii-mina,  properly  '  plaitings ' 
or  'weavings.  Ui  is  the  Latin  form  of  the  Ar- 
yan root  tia.  From  it  we  have  the  name  of 
the  vine,  ui-tis.  Even  to-day  there  are  peoples 
in  Africa  who  use  as  huts  the  natural  entangle- 
ments of  tree  branches. 

Again  we  receive  not  a  little  light  on  the 
origin  of  '  writing '  when  we  learn  that  'write 
comes  from  a  Teutonic  root  '  writ,'  which 
means  to  '  cut  slightly,'  to  '  mark,'  to  '  scratch.' 
The  Latin  scrib-ere,  to  write,  which  we  have 
in  so  many  words,  as  '  inscribe,'  '  describe,' 
'  prescribe,* '  inscription,'  '  scripture,'  etc.,  comes 
from  an  Aryan  root  scrabh  or  sca7'bh,  an  amplifi- 
cation of  scar,  which  also  means  to  '  cut  slight- 
ly,' to  '  scratch,'  to  '  mark.'  From  the  same 
root  scrabh,  with  loss  of  the  initial  s  (compare 
teg-ument,  de-tec-tive,  etc.,  from  the  root  stag), 
we  have  also  the  Greek  graf-ciii,  to  write,  and 
the  English  to  '  grave,'  to  '  en-grave.'  All  these 
words  bear  witness  to  a  time  when  '  writing  ' 
was  done  on  wood  or  wax  or  other  soft  surface 
by  means  of  a  pointed  instrument. 

The  whole  history  of  book-making  is  recorded 


114  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

in  the  very  names  we  use  nowadays  for  book, 
paper  and  other  things  connected  therewith. 

'  Book  '  is  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  bdc,  prop- 
erly '  a  beach-tree.'  The  meaning  of  '  book  '  is 
due  to  the  custom  of  writing  on  tablets  of 
beechcn-board.  German  buclic,  beech,  bucJi, 
book,  Middle  High  German  buocJie,  a  beech 
tree  ;  biiocJi,  a  book.  In  Latin  the  book  was 
called  liber.  Hence  Italian  libro  and  French 
livre.  But  liber  is  also  the  name  of  the  bark  of 
a  tree. 

The  '  paper  '  on  which  we  write  owes  its  name 
io  papyrus,  a  kind  of  reed  whose  inner  rind  was 
used  as  writing  material.  This  '  papyrus  '  was 
called  in  Greek  bublos,  hence  biblos,  the  Greek 
word  for  '  book  '  and  our  '  Bible.' 

'  Parchment,'  Middle  English  percJicmin, 
parcJicviyji,  Yrcnch par chevii?i,  \^2i\.\n pcrga7ni7ia, 
pergaDiena,  Greek  pergamcnc,  was  so  called  from 
the  city  of  Pergamos,  in  Asia,  where  it  was 
first  used. 

All  these  writings,  whether  on  papyrus,  liber 
or  parchment,  *  rolled  up  '  formed  a  '  volume,' 
from  Latin  voluere,  to  roll,  to  turn. 

The  names   of  the  limbs  of  our  body  seem 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  115 

also  to  provoke  our  curiosity.  Where  do  they 
come  from  ?  How  were  they  formed  ?  They 
too  show  traces  of  a  very  rude  nomenclature, 
sometimes  not  well  defined,  wavering  between 
one  meaning  and  another. 

The  Greek  cheir,  for  instance,  meant  '  hand,' 
but  also  '  arm.'  The  same  must  be  said  of  Latin 
manus,  as  we  have  from  it  '  maiiica,'  '  sleeve.' 
Cheir  itself  comes  from  the  root  gJiar,  to  seize ; 
manus,  from  the  root  ma,  means  the  '  former,' 
the  '  maker.' 

Sanskrit  kap-ala,  Greek  kcpJiale,  Latin  cap-ut, 
and,  according  to  Grimm's  law,  English  Jicad, 
came  from  the  same  root :  kap,  to  contain.  Their 
original  meaning  was  that  of  a  shell,  '  scull.' 

The  Latin  word  for  '  pot,'  testa,  has  given 
the  Italian  testa  and  the  French  tete,  head.  In 
not  a  few  other  languages  the  name  of  the  head 
means,  etymologically,  pot,  pumpkin,  shell,  etc. 

Tooth,  Middle  English  toth,  Anglo-Saxon, 
^(?>,  which  stands  for  tan'i,  German  zahn,  Latin 
dent-em,  Sanskrit  ciant-a,  Greek  odonta,  are 
all  from  an  Aryan  form  adant-a,  a  present  par- 
ticipial form  from  a  root  ad,  to  cut,  to  bite,  to 
eat.   From  this  same  root  wc  have  Latin  ed-cre. 


Ii6  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

to  eat,  Greek  ed-ein,  Gothic  it-an,  Anglo-Saxon 
et-an,  English  eat. 

Eye,  as  we  have  seen,  is  from  a  root  ak,  to  be 
sharp,  to  pierce. 

Brow,  forehead,  and  also  the  edge  of  a  clifT, 
Anglo-Saxon  brii,  'LAtin/rons,  Greek  ofriis,  is 
from  a  root  bJirii,  to  swell,  to  be  prominent. 
Homer  calls  Ilios  ofrilessa,  '  browy,'  if  I  might 
say  so,  hilly. 

The  '  eyelid  '  is  in  Latin  cil-iuni,  from  a  root 
kal,  to  cover,  to  veil.  It  was  said  also  of  any 
piece  of  ground  stretching  forth  so  as  to  leave 
a  hollowness  under  it.  In  Italian  cilio  means 
eyelid  as  well  as  edge,  cliff.  In  Russian  tscJielo 
means  forehead  ;  the  plural  tscliclia  means  cliff. 
The  same  coincidence  we  meet  with  in  the 
Semitic  field. 

The  root  of  '  nose,'  German  nase,  Latin  nasus, 
is  uncertain.  But  it  seems  it  meant  simply  a 
stretching  forth,  a  prominence.  In  Beowulf 
(v.  571)  we  read  scz-ndssas,  for  '  promontories.' 

Besides  Latin  testa,  a  pot,  and  perhaps  Sans- 
krit kap-ala,  a  vase,  the  art  of  the  potter  has 
given  us  the  word  figure,  Latin  _/?§// ;7?,  from  the 
root  fig,  to  model,  to   mould.     Fi{}i)g-ere  was 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  n? 

said  at  first  only  of  modelling  clay,  just  as  the 
potter  does.  Figiira  was  the  result  of  this  work. 
Earthenwares  were  c^WedJictilia  .  Passing  from 
the  material  to  the  intellectual  world,  we  have 
had  such  words  2,%  fig-nient ,  fic-tion,  the  product 
of  the  imagination.  In  a  certain  sense,  the  poet 
treats  and  fashions  the  invisible  world  of  ideas 
as  the  potter  his  clay. 

(We  may  notice  in  passing  that  a  kind  of 
works  of  '  fiction  '  which  in  English  are  called 
'novels' — from  the  Italian  novella,  2i  piece  of 
news,  an  anecdote,  a  tale — arc  called  by  other 
peoples  rovians  or  ronianzi.  For  a  long  time 
after  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  while  the 
modern  Neo-Latin  tongues  were  slowly  evolv- 
ing from  Latin,  and  Latin  still  held  its  own  as 
the  language  of  scholars,  romans  were  called 
the  dialects  spoken  by  the  people.  The 
same  name  designated  tales,  whether  prose 
or  poetry,  in  which  the  literature  of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  so  rich,  composed  in  the  new 
dialects  for  the  special  amusement  and  instruc- 
tion of  the  common  people  and  of  the  ladies  who 
did  not  know  Latin.  The  name  has  survived 
and  is  still  applied  to  works  of  fiction,  like  nov- 


Il8  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

els,  tales,  etc.  In  connection  with  the  charac- 
ter of  such  literature,  the  adjective  '  romantic  ' 
has  acquired  also  other  meanings  which  would 
be  interesting  to  follow.  But  we  cannot  do  it 
here:  it  would  carry  us  too  far  from  our  sub- 
ject.) 

While  •  head  '  and  '  figure  *  have  their  names 
from  works  of  the  hands,  trunk  is  evidently 
taken  from  the  trees.  {Chest,  Middle  English 
cheste,  chiste,  is  from  Latin  cista,  a  box.) 

Foot,  Anglo-Saxon  fot,  Greek  pod-a  (accusa- 
tive), Latin  ped-em  (compare  fa-thcr  from  an 
Aryan  root  pa)  is  derived  from  the  root  pad, 
to  go. 

Finger  (fi(n)g-erj  is  from  an  Aryan  root  pak, 
to  bind,  to  grasp,  while  French  doigt,  Italian 
dito,  from  Latin  dig-itus,  are  from  a  root  die,  to 
point  out,  to  show. 


TWELFTH  LETTER. 

The  Development  of  Ethical  Feelings  Studied  in  Words. — 
Ethics,  Customs  and  Morals — Law  and  Right — Virtue 
and  Vice  ;  Malice,  Perversity  and  Depravity — Murder — 
Shame — Truth — Verity — The  Ideas  of  Labor,  Poverty 
and  Suffering  in  Language. 


M 


ORE  interesting  even  than  the  develop- 
ment of  dwellings,  tools  and  the  arts  per- 
taining to  material  life,  is  it  to  know  how  those 
ideas  and  feelings  have  developed  in  man  which 
properly  constitute  his  morality.  Some  moral 
characteristics  may  be  said  to  be  common 
to  all  men.  Most  of  them,  however,  change 
from  nation  to  nation  and  from  time  to  time, 
or  to  put  it  in  more  comprehensive  words, 
they  change  according  to  the  psychic  climate  of 
a  people.  Peoples  that  live  contemporaneously 
and  in  the  same  physical  climate,  can,  intellect- 
ually and  morally,  be  wide  apart.  In  a  certain 
sense,  even  historically  they  are  immensely  sep- 
arated from  one  another.  The  Hottentots  of 
to-day,  for  instance,  are  materially  our  contem- 


I20  TH^.    FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

porarics  ;  but,  from  the  standpoint  of  civiliza- 
tion, they  are  the  contemporaries  of  the  fore- 
fathers of  our  race  who  lived  thousands  of  years 
ago.  And  as  rude,  imperfect,  and  almost 
beneath  our  ideas  of  man  are  some  elements  in 
the  morals  of  the  Hottentots,  we  have  no  reason 
to  disbelieve  that  our  remote  forefathers  may 
have  gone  through  a  similar  stage  of  hardly 
incij:)«ent  civilization  ;  through  a  stage,  where 
the  life  of  the  soul  is  almost  nothing,  the  hori- 
zon of  the  mind  is  narrow  and  the  material  part 
of  life  dominates  and  encompasses  all  thoughts 
and  aspirations.  Even  when  they  had  entered 
upon  a  stage  of  comparatively  advanced  civili- 
zation, when  they  had  books  and  arts  and  laws 
and  powerful  organizations,  religious,  social  and 
political,  did  their  life  bear  the  marks  of  a  bar- 
barism such  as  we  find  among  peoples  who  are 
greatly  our  inferiors.  As  we  see  to-day  canni- 
balism not  only  not  shunned,  but  honored  as  a 
good  and  religious  custom,  we  find  the  code  of 
Manu — the  code  of  a  people  whose  civilization 
was  in  many  ways  worthy  of  comparison  with 
ours — wholly  shaped  after  the  barbarous  prin- 
ciple of  retaliation.     A  man  of  the  lower  caste 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  I2i 

who  struck  one  of  the  higher,  was  to  have  his 
hand  cut  off.  If  he  kicked  him,  his  foot  must 
be  severed.  If  he  broke  a  dyke,  he  must  be 
drowned.  Traces  of  such  principles  we  find 
with  the  Romans  and  the  Greeks.  In  Germany, 
perjury  vv^as  punished  by  cutting  the  hand  that 
was  raised  in  taking  the  oath.  Even  with  us, 
capital  punishment  is  after  all  but  a  remnant  of 
this  principle,  the  spirit  of  which  is  set  forth  in 
the  adage,  "  eye  for  eye,  and  tooth  for  tooth." 

In  this  field,  too,  language  can  supply  us 
with  some  precious  materials  for  study.  We 
cannot  expect,  of  course,  to  find  in  it  the  com- 
plete history  of  the  moral  development  of  our 
race.  To  do  this  the  linguistic  materials  should 
be  considerably  larger  than  those  in  our  posses- 
sion. Besides,  it  would  require  such  a  vast, 
minute,  complete  history  of  each  word  in  con- 
nection with  the  development  of  each  language 
and  the  historical  conditions  of  each  people, 
that  not  years,  but  generations,  would  hardly 
be  enough  for  the  undertaking.  The  result, 
however,  would  be  a  history  of  the  mind  and 
soul  of  our  race,  such  as  it  is  barely  possible  to 
dream  of. 


122  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

At  any  rate,  we  can  at  least  discover,  by 
means  of  linguistic  researches,  some  of  those 
landmarks  which  show  how  and  in  what  direc- 
tions moral  life  has  developed. 

Here  too,  as  it  was  to  be  expected,  we  find 
that  even  the  loftiest  moral  ideas  and  senti- 
ments did  not  spring  up  full-fledged  from  the 
human  mind,  but  are  the  result  of  a  slow  devel- 
opment from  very  humble,  sometimes  mean  and 
not  moral  beginnings. 

The  word  '  moral '  itself,  with  its  derivations 
'  morality,'  *  immoral,'  etc.,  descends  from  a 
word  (Latin  mos  (accusative  mor-eni)  which 
means  simply  *  custom.'  So  the  word  '  ethics  ' 
is  derived  from  Greek  ctJios,  custom.  They 
meant,  fundamentally,  simply  that  which  is  in 
accordance  with  the  usage  of  the  most,  which 
is  accepted  by  long  use  and  agreed  upon  by  the 
majority  of  the  people.* 

'  Law,'  Anglo-Saxon  lagii,  is  simply  that 
which   lies,   which   is   even  and   in   due   order. 

*  "  It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  custom,  and  this  indeed  chiefly 
explains  its  strength,  that  men  do  not  clearly  distinguish  be 
tvveen  their  actions  and  their  duties — what  they  ought  to  do  is 
what  they  always  have  done,  and  they  do  it." — H.  Sumner 
Maine,  ('■  Village  Communities,"  p.  191.) 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  123 

'  Right '  is  that  which  is  straight,  not  crooked. 
The  Latin  zV^i- (whence  'justice,'  '  juris-prudence, 
etc.)  is  that  which  binds ;  that  which  men  are 
bound  to. 

'  Virtue,'  Latin  virtus,  meant  simply  strength, 
especially  the  strength  of  the  soldier.  ^ViceJ 
Latin  vitiuin,  conveyed  the  idea  of  something 
not  straight,  mixed  up,  from  the  root  vi,  to 
weave.  Mains,  bad  (whence  '  malice,'  '  mali- 
cious, etc.),  meant  properly  'damaging,'  'ruin- 
ous,' from  the  root  mar,  to  damage,  to  hurt, 
to  bruise.  The  Greek  kakds,  bad,  meant  also 
at  first  '  damaging.' 

'Perverse'  is  from  the  Latin /£T-wt/(?,  to  turn 
aside,  from  the  right  way ;  to  corrupt.  '  De- 
praved '  is  from  l^di\.\n  prav us,  crooked.  Horace 
speaks  of  3.  pravus  nasus,  a  crooked  nose. 

Many  other  words  which  to  our  minds  con- 
vey an  idea  essentially  moral,  had  once  no  such 
meaning  at  all.  Thus  the  word  '  murder,'  is 
from  the  same  root  as  the  word  '  mortal,'  and 
meant  simply  to  bruise  to  death,  to  kill ;  for 
instance,  to  kill  an  enemy  in  battle,  without 
any  notion  of  moral  blame  in  it.  Likewise 
'  manslaughter'  liad  simply  the  meaning  of  kill- 


124  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

ing,  in  battle  or  otherwise,  with  no  ethical  im- 
putation. The  same  must  be  said  of  Latin 
ccBdes,  a  slaughter.  Also  the  Greek  apoktcino 
meant  to  kill,  whether  it  was  a  man  in  a  fight, 
or  an  enemy  in  battle,  or  an  animal  in  hunting. 

^ Shame,'  whose  root  is  connected  with  'scathe,' 
meant  at  first  simply  a  material  damage  or  of- 
fense. The  grief  and  mortification  which  now 
we  attribute  to  a  moral  cause,  was  first  due  to 
corporal  pain. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  Greek  there  is  no 
word  to  convey  exactly  that  idea  of  blame 
which  we  perceive  and  feel  in  the  word  '  lie,' 
s\nzQpseudos  was  said  of  all  untruth,  of  a  mere 
mistake  and  of  a  deliberate  falsehood  as  well. 

'  True  '  is  connected,  by  its  root,  with  '  trust '; 
fixed,  steady,  to  be  trusted.  Latin  vcrum 
(whence  verity,  veracious,  etc.)  meant  originally 
'credible,'  from  a  root  var,  to  believe. 

An  important  group  of  words  we  have,  de- 
rived from  the  same  root,  and  conveying  the 
ideas  of  '  labor'  and  *  suffering.' 

From  the  root  pen,  meaning  to  exert,  to 
strain  one's  self,  we  have  in  Greek  the  verh  pen- 
omai,  to  exert  one's  self,  to  work,  to  fatigue,  to 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  125 

suffer.  Hence  penia,  poverty;  peina,  hunger; 
peinan,  to  be  hungry;  ponos,  fatigue,  weariness, 
suffering ;  poncros,  working,  poor,  a  wretch,  a 
bad  man.  There  is  no  little  matter  for  reflec- 
tion, I  think,  in  this  evokition  of  words  from 
the  meaning  of  '  work  '  to  that  of  'suffering' 
and  '  moral  depravation.' 

Doubtless  such  evolution  could  only  take 
place  in  a  social  system  where  the  poor  have  to 
work  so  hard  that  labor  becomes  a  suffering, 
and  so  difficult  it  is  to  find  one's  way  upward, 
that  after  useless  struggles,  they  sink  into  hope- 
less degradation  and  wretchedness. 

An  analogous  evolution  we  have  noticed  in 
the  word  captivus,  captive,  a  prisoner  of  war, 
which  came  to  mean  'miserable,'  'sickly,'  in 
French  {c/u'tif),  and   *  bad  '  in   Italian  {cattivo). 

Laborare  meant  also  to  '  work,'  and  then  '  to 
tire  one's  self,'  to  suffer.  Compare  the  two 
meanings  in  the  English  'laborer'  and  to  'labor.' 
The  same  evolution  we  have  again  in  the  Neo- 
Latin  languages.  In  French  travail  means 
'work,'  but  in  Italian /rrt'Tv?^//^  is  more  properly 
said  of  worries  and  troubles. 

The  same  thin";  we  meet  with  in  the  Semitic 


126  THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

family.     In  Hebrew,  for  instance,  the  root  dsab 
means  '  labor,'  '  weariness,'  '  grief.' 

When  the  inferior  languages  of  semi-bar- 
barous peoples  are  as  well  studied  as  those  of 
the  Indo-European  family,  a  larger  crop  will  be 
gathered  in  these  interesting  linguistic  and 
psychologic,  or  if  you  will  let  me  coin  a  word, 
glotto-psychological  studies. 


THIRTEENTH  LETTER. 

rhe  Color — Sense,  and  the  Names  of  Colors — Importance  of 
this  Subject — Linguistic  and  Physiological  Researches. 


IT  would  be  perfectly  superfluous  to  discourse 
with  you,  gifted  as  you  are  with  so  exquisite 
a  feeling  for  art,  upon  the  paramount  im- 
portance of  color  in  our  relations  wMth  the  outer 
world.  We  have  just  to  shut  our  eyes  to  per- 
ceive how  barren  and  desolate  this  poor  vale 
of  tears  would  be  if  it  should  present  itself  to 
us  in  that  way,  colorless,  dark,  forever  ! 

Things  reveal  themselves  to  us  through  their 
shape,  movement,  odor,  weight ;  but  none 
of  their  properties  strikes  us  so  much  and  so 
promptly  as  their  color.  When  we  look  at 
people,  we  may  not  notice  at  once  the  shape  of 
their  nose,  the  form  of  their  lips,  the  breadth 
or  narrowness  of  their  forehead  ;  but  we  notice 
at  first  sight,  and  remember  as  long  as  we  have 
of  the   people  any  recollection  at  all,  the  color 


1 2b  THE   FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

of  their  complexion,  whether  they  are  dark, 
brown  or  fair.  Many,  in  presence  of  a  flower, 
a  tree,  an  animal,  a  house,  may  overlook  some 
important  characteristics,  but  nobody  can  fail 
to  notice  their  color.  It  is  useless  to  dwell  any 
longer  on  this  point ;  its  truth  is  patent.  But 
to  an  inquisitive  mind  the  question  may  occur  : 
"  Did  men  always  perceive  colors  in  the  same 
way  as  we  do  ?  Did  they  always  notice  in 
the  skies  and  on  earth  those  delicate  hues  in 
which  our  eyes  delight?  "  A  priori,  we  should 
expect  that  in  this  field,  as  in  all  others,  there 
must  have  been  some  evolution.  The  percep- 
tion of  colors,  as  all  mental  powers,  must  have 
developed  and  improved  in  the  long  run  of  gen- 
erations. But  whether  this  be  true  or  not,  how 
are  we  going  to  find  out  ?  Evidently  the  best 
key  to  the  problem  lies  in  language.  If  wc  col- 
lect the  names  of  colors  used  by  our  remote 
forefathers  and  inquire  into  the  original  primi- 
tive meaning  of  those  names,  we  shall  have 
made  a  great  step  toward  the  discovery  of  the 
reach  and  nature  of  their  color  perception. 

The  subject  is  the  more  difficult   as   the  dis- 
tinctions of  colors,  especially  between  kindred 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  129 

ones,  are  not  seldom  matter  for  discussion  even 
among  educated  persons  speaking  the  same 
language.  Of  course,  far  more  difficult  must  it 
be  to  find  what  was  the  exact  meaning  of  a 
color-name  used  some  thousand  years  ago. 
Again,  not  unfrequently  the  same  name  of  color 
has  been  used  by  different  peoples  with  differ- 
ent meanings.  The  English  '  purple,'  for  in- 
stance, is  exactly  the  same  word  as  Latin 
purpura,  Italian  porpora,  French  pourpre,  but  all 
of  these,  except  the  English  word,  mean  live 
red.  Evidently  with  such  difficulties  to  battle 
with,  this  study  is  not  an  easy  one.  Still  some 
researches  have  been  made  and  results  obtained 
which  are  worth  recording.  Thus  it  will  be  a 
surprise  to  many  to  hear  that  the  Veda  hymns, 
which  contain  more  than  ten  thousand  lines  and 
describe  the  sky  over  and  over  in  all  its  aspects 
and  shapes,  never  mention  the  color  blue.  The 
same  thing  must  be  said  of  the  Zendavesta,  the 
sacred  books  of  the  Parsees,  and  of  the  Bible, 
and  the  Homeric  poems  as  well.  It  is  also  a 
fact  that  neither  the  Rigvedas  nor  the  Zenda- 
vesta speak  of  the  trees  or  the  earth  as  green. 
They    call    the  trees  fruitful,    beautiful,    gold- 


I30  THE  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS. 

en-hued  (evidently  in  reference  to  the  golden 
fruits),  but  never  are  they  called  green.  Aris- 
toteles  in  his  Meteorology  speaks  of  the  rain- 
bow as  tri-colored,  '  red,  yellow  and  green.' 

These  facts  show  that  for  a  long  time,  even 
with  peoples  highly  civilized,  the  perception  of 
colors  was  not  so  vivid  and  distinct  as  it  is  with 
us,  or  at  least  their  classifications  and  names 
were  in  a  very  imperfect  and  almost  chaotic 
condition.  The  same  results  were  arrived  at 
by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  Homeric  studies,  and 
by  Professor  Magnus  in  his  researches  among 
the  savage  tribes  of  America. 
'  We  may  then  safely  lay  down  the  conclusion 
that,  however  keen  the  power  of  sight  may  be 
with  primitive  peoples,  they  lack  that  percep- 
tion of  fine  shades  and  hues  which  can  only  be 
acquired  by  a  gradual  education  of  the  eye. 

We  can  now  go  a  stop  further.  Granting 
that  primitive  men  did  not  perceive  as  many 
colors  as  we  do,  Jioiv  did  they  perceive  those 
few  ?  Our  own  idea  of  color  has  changed 
within  a  few  years.  We  conceive  it  now  as  a  par- 
ticular movement  of  matter  which  assumes  dif- 
ferent appearance  according  to  the  nature  and 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  13 ^ 

rapidity  of  that  movement.  It  would,  of  course, 
be  absurd  to  expect  that  men  did  at  first  con- 
ceive color  in  any  way  like  this.  How  then 
did  they  conceive  it?  Also  in  this  case  we  must 
appeal  to  thetestimony  of  language.  It  appears 
that  they  conceived  it  as  some  material  stuff 
*  stretched  '  over  the  thing  itself.  As  an  in- 
stance, the  root  arg  (or  rag),  from  which  we 
have  the  Sanskrit  rajataw,  silver,  rajatas,  white, 
arjanas,  light,  raktas,  red,  and  Greek  argurds, 
means  to  '  dye,'  to  '  stretch.'  We  have  from  it 
the  Greek  verb  rezem,  to  color,  to  stretch,  and 
the  'Ldiixn por-rig-cre,  to  stretch  forth. 

This  result,  set  forth  by  linguistic  investiga- 
tions, is  also  supported  by  the  fact  that  an 
equally  rude  idea  of  color  seems  still  to  prevail 
in  the  minds  of  uneducated  men,  even  in  our 
days. 

It  remains  now  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  the 
different  color-names.  Where  were  they  taken 
from  ?  To  answer  this  question,  it  will  help  us  to 
look  at  the  way  that  we  ourselves  follow  in  the 
formation  of  color  names.  As  a  rule,  we  give 
to  a  color  newly-invented,  or  newly-noticed  and 
brought  into  prominence,  the  name  of  some  min- 


132  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

eral  or  tree  or  flower  whose  color  most  resembles 
the  one  in  question.  Thus  we  have  the  color- 
names  *  rose,'  '  pink,'  '  violet,'  '  copper,'  '  bronze,' 
'orange,'  'lemon,'  'hazel,'  'chestnut,'  'ochre,' 
'  ash,'  etc.  That  is  to  say,  we  know  no  better 
way  of  naming  or  even  defining  a  color  than  by 
referring  to  a  substance  which  has  that  color. 
We  must,  of  course,  make  an  exception  for  the 
few  names  of  colors  whose  origin  is  due  to  some 
mere  accident,  to  the  name  of  the  inventor,  the 
date  of  the  invention,  etc.,  as  color  Magenta, 
Solferino,  Marengo,  etc. 

If  we  examine  the  names  of  the  principal 
colors  in  the  Indo-European  languages,  we  find 
that  this  is  the  case  :  names  of  colors  are  also, 
as  a  rule,  names  of  plants,  minerals  or  some 
other  material  substance. 

In  Sanskrit  rajata  means  both  'silver'  and 
'  white.'  '  Green  '  comes  from  the  same  root  as 
'  grow ' ;  and  it  refers  to  trees  and  vegetation 
generally. 

It  is  difficult  to  trace  out  the  first  origin  of 
'black.'  It  is  noteworthy,  however,  that  bl(xk 
in  Danish,  and  black  in  Swedish,  mean  '  ink.'  It 
might  be  objected  that  '  ink '  being  an  artificial 


THE   FORTUNES  OF  WORDS.  I33 

product,  certainly  not  of  prehistoric  times,  this 
meaning  of  blcsk  and  black  must  be  a  secondary- 
meaning.  But  it  is  very  natural  to  suppose 
that  at  first  blcek  and  black  meant  any  dark, 
smearing  substance,  and  were  by  and  by  re- 
stricted to  that  particular  substance  which  was 
better  adapted  to  dye,  to  mark,  to  write.  In 
German  blakig,  blakcrig,  mean  '  burning,' 
'smoky.'  In  short,  it  is  almost  not  to  be 
doubted  that  'black'  refers  us  to  some  sub- 
stance with  a  dark  color. 

'  Blue,'  Anglo-Saxon  bleo,  whose  meaning  was 
first  near  '  livid,'  is  not  improbably  connected 
with  Icelandic  bly,  German  blei,  lead. 

'  White '  is  from  a  Teutonic  type  hwita, 
(Anglo-Saxon  hzuit,  Gothic  Invcits,  German 
wciss)  from  a  root  hivit,  to  shine.  So  '  blank  ' 
pale,  French  blanc,  white,  is  from  a  root  mean- 
ing to  '  shine.'  Both  therefore,  '  white  '  and 
'blank'  refer  to  'light,'  the  color  of  the  light. 

The  Latin  ?ii-gcr,  black,  which  we  have  in 
negro,  nigrescent,  etc.,  is  from  the  same  root 
from  which  noct-em,  niikt-a,  German  nacht,  and 
our  '  night '  come.  It  means  the  color  of  the 
night,  the  absence  of  light. 


T34  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

*  Yellow,'  whose  original  color  was  '  light 
yellow,'  refers  us  ultimately,  like  '  green,'  to 
trees  and  leaves,  probably  as  seen  in  the  pale- 
ness of  the  late  season,  or  when  struck  by  the 
sun's  rays. 

This  peculiar  formation  of  color-names  opens 
a  new  window,  so  to  say,  through  which  we  can 
look  into  the  growth  of  language.  It  brings 
forth  the  facility  with  which  the  human  mind 
taking  one  element  of  a  thing — for  instance,  its 
outward  appearance — and  applying  it  to  other 
things,  rises  to  a  general  abstract  idea. 
Thus  we  have  a  practical  illustration  of  the  way 
in  which  our  mind  M^orks:  first,  it  perceives  a 
similarity  between  two  things;  this  similarity  is 
perceived  as  something  distinct  from  the  things 
themselves :  it  becomes,  therefore,  an  abstrac- 
tion. This  is  the  first  step  toward  an  induction  : 
on  a  step  like  this  all  human  knowledge  is 
founded.  The  highest  theorems  of  our  science 
are  but  the  last  links  of  a  chain  of  abstractions, 
the  first  of  which  rests  simply  on  the  approach- 
ing of  two  objects  which  have  something  in  com- 
mon. The  greatest  trouble  is  that  in  the  im- 
mense chain  of  such  interwoven  and  far-origin- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    IVORDS.  I35 

ating  abstractions,  it  is  frequently  impossible 
to  bring  back  each  of  them  to  its  primitive 
source  and  significance.  Hence  very  often 
their  true  value  is  misrepresented  or  miscon- 
ceived, and  such  misconception  is  assumed  as 
the  basis  for  other  abstractions  which  of  course, 
having  a  wrong  foundation,  must  also  be  wrong. 
So  that  these  palaeontologico-linguistic  studies 
have  also  this  merit,  of  no  little  importance : 
they  may  help  us  to  find  out  the  true  origin  of 
a  certain  category  of  abstractions,  and  to  cor- 
rect thereby  the  false  or  imperfect  theories 
which  rest  on  a  fundamental  misunderstanding 
of  those  abstractions. 


FOURTEENTH  LETTER. 

Names  of  Numbers — The  Progressive  Development  of  Calcu- 
lation Studied  in  the  Names  of  Numbers — Results  from 
Different  Languages. 


IMPORTANT  as  the  color-names  are  for 
the  study  of  the  development  of  our  percep- 
tive life,  they  are  not  nearly  as  important  as  the 
origin  and  history  of  numerals  for  the  study  of 
the  development  of  our  understanding.  It  has 
long  been  a  question  among  philosophers 
whether  the  idea  of  numbers  belongs  to  the 
so-called  inborn  ideas  or  must  be  reckoned 
as  the  product  of  experience.  Many  were  ready 
to  affirm  that  such  propositions  as  "  two  and 
two  make  four  "  are  "  necessary  truths,"  they 
are  evident  by  themselves,  and  our  experience 
cannot  go  behind  them  ;  they  simply  force 
themselves  upon  our  minds.  Others,  J.  S.  Mill, 
for  instance  (quoted  by  Mr.  Tylor),  maintain 
that  "  two  and  one  are  equal  to  three  "  ex- 
presses merely  a  "  truth  known  to  us  by  early 
and   constant   experience:  an   inductive  truth, 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  I37 

and  such  truths  are  the  foundation  of  the 
science  of  numbers."  The  discussion  among 
philosophers  might  have  gone  on  forever,  had 
not  the  researches  of  glottologists  and  ethnolo- 
gists stepped  in  to  show  how  facts  really  are. 
These  researches  demonstrate  that  Mill's  opin- 
ion is  the  right  one.  Even  such  a  simple 
conception  as  "  three  and  two  make  five  "  had 
to  be  gained  by  slow  and  practical  experience. 
There  are  to-day  peoples  who  cannot  count 
above  five  or  four  or  even  three  or  two.  The 
low  tribes  of  Brazil  count  by  their  finger-joints 
up  to  three  only  ;  any  bigger  number  they  ex- 
press by  the  word  '  many.'  A  Pari  vocabulary 
gives  these  numerals  :  i,  '  omi ' ;  2,  '  curiri ; '  3, 
'  prica,'  'many.'  In  a  Botocudo  vocabulary 
we  find  :  i,  '  mokenam  '  ;  2,  '  uruhu,'  '  many.' 
The  New-Hollanders  have  no  numbers  beyond 
'  two.'  Other  peoples  cannot  count  up  to  three 
or  four  without  saying  '  two  and  one,'  '  two  and 
two.'  In  Queensland  we  find  :  i,'ganar';  2, 
'  burla  '  ;  3,  '  burla-ganar  ' ;  4,  '  burla-burla.'  In 
the  Kamilaroi  dialect  we  find:  i,  '  mal  ' ;  2, 
'bularr';  3,  '  guliba  * ;  4,  '  bularr-bularr  ' ;  5, 
'  bulaguliba'  ;  6,  'guliba-guliba.' 


138  THE   FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

All  peoples  use  their  fingers  to  count,  and 
often  we  find  the  word  '  hand  '  meaning  '  five  '  ; 
'  two  hands  '  or  '  half  a  man  '  meaning  '  ten  . 
*  hands  and  feet  '  or  '  one  man  '  meaning  *  twen- 
ty.* Some  peoples  count  up  to  '  five  '  (which 
they  call  a  '  hand  '),  and  then  they  go  on  say- 
ing '  a  hand  and  one  (six),  '  a  hand  and  two  ' 
(seven),  '  a  hand  and  three '  (eight),  etc.  In  this 
way  we  have  a  'quinary'  numeral  system. 
Others  count  up  to  '  two  hands  '  (ten),  and  then 
they  count,  '  two  hands  and  one,'  '  two  hands 
and  two,'  etc.,  thus  forming  a  '  decimal '  system. 
Others  still  count  up  to  '  twenty  '  (hands  and 
feet),  and  then  count  :  '  hands-feet  and  one,' 
'  hands-feet  and  two,'  etc.,  up  to  another  twenty 
that  is  forty.  In  this  case  we  have  a  vigesimal 
system  of  numeration.  It  appears  that  the 
most  intelligent  races  have  soon  discarded  the 
quinary  system  as  insufficient  and  the  vigesi- 
mal as  too  cumbersome,  and  followed  the 
decimal  system,  not  so  strictly,  however,  as  to 
abolish  all  traces  of  the  two  others.  Thus,  for 
instance,  we  have  evident  remnants  of  a  vigesi- 
mal system  in  the  French  numeration,  where, 
instead   of  '  septante '  one   says  'soixantedix,' 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  139 

and  '  quatre-vingts  '  (four-twenties)  for  '  eighty.' 
We  find  also  six-vingts  (120),  sept-vingts  (140), 
and  there  is  a  hospital  called  les  quinze  vingts, 
from  its  '  three  hundred  '  inmates.  These  traces 
of  vigesimal  notation  are  a  characteristic  of  the 
Keltic  race.  In  Gaelic  we  find  aon  deug  is  da 
fhichcad,  one,  ten  and  two-twenties,  51.  In 
Welsh  :  luiarbymtheg  ar  tigain,  one  and  iifteen 
over  twenty,  36.  Perhaps  there  is  also  a  trace 
of  Keltic  influence  in  ourcounting  '  three-score 
and  ten,'  '  four-score  and  fifteen,' etc. 

How  are  the  names  themselves  of  the  num- 
bers formed  ?  Let  us  look  at  some  facts  which 
happen  with  different  peoples  ;  they  will  per- 
haps help  us  to  see  into  the  origin  of  our  o^vn 
numerals.  Indian  scholars  had  given  to  certain 
words  a  numeral  value,  so  as  to  have  a  kind  of 
'  memoria  technica '  to  remember  dates  and 
figures.  Thus  '  moon  '  or  'earth'  represented 
'  one  ' ;  '  eyes,'  'wings,'  '  arms  '  or  'jaws  'meant 
'  two  '  ;  '  fire  '  or  '  quality  '  meant  '  three,'  as  they 
imagined  three  kinds  of  fire,  and  three  diiTerent 
qualities;  'vowel  '  meant  '  seven,'  as  they  reck- 
oned seven  vowels,  etc.  It  is  not  absurd  to 
suppose  that  as  '  hand  '  was  employed  to  mean 


fe- 


140  rJIE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

'  jfive,'  they  may  have  used  a  word  like  '  wing' 
or  '  leg'  or  '  arm  '  or  '  eye  '  to  mean  '  two.'  We 
must  remember  that  once  the  names  for  '  five ' 
and  '  two  '  being  found,  all  the  others  can  be 
formed  through  different  combinations  of  these 
two. 

The  Tahitians  offer  also  a  fact  worthy  of  at- 
tention. They  are  not  allowed  to  pronounce 
any  word  which  is  similar  in  sound  to  the  name 
of  their  chief.  Therefore  on  the  advent  of  a 
new  chief  with  a  name  similar  to  that  of  a 
number,  they  are  obliged  to  find  a  new  word 
for  such  number.  Thus  instead  of  the  word 
nta,  the  ordinary  word  for  '  two,'  they  intro- 
duced the  word  />///,  '  together,'  which  after- 
wards remained  in  the  language.  Names  of  this 
kind,  which  may  take  the  place  of  a  numeral, 
are  found  in  all  languages.  In  Latin,  for  in- 
stance, instead  of '  two,'  one  might  say  *  copula,' 
bond,  tie.  In  English,  instead  of  'twenty,'  we 
can  say  '  score,'  a  notch.  In  Old  Norse  we  find 
fiockr,  flock,  for  *  five  ' ;  folk,  people,  for  *  forty  ' ; 
Ji'cr,  army,  for  eighty. 

We  must  also  remember  that  names  of 
weights  and  measures  were  formed  in  that  way  ; 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  141 

namely,  certain  common  words  were  given  an 
exact  arithmetical  meaning  of  which  at  first 
they  were  deprived.  Thus,  gallon  ('  a  large 
bowl  '),  furlong  ('  a  furrow-long,'  the  length  of  a 
furrow),  pound  ('weight  '),  etc,  had  at  first  no 
exact  numeral  value. 

Keeping  these  facts  well  in  our  minds  let  us 
proceed  to  study,  as  far  as  we  can,  the  origin 
and  formation  of  the  Indo-European  numerals. 
The  subject  is  one  of  great  interest,  since  num- 
bers are  one  of  the  essentials  of  our  civilization. 
Only  by  numbers  we  can  measure  the  world  and 
ourselves.  But  we  must  also  remember  that  of 
all  words  the  names  of  numbers  are  the  first  to 
lose  their  primitive  meaning,  and  therefore  to 
become  corrupted  in  the  common  parlance. 
Hence  the  great  difficulty  of  their  study  and 
comparison  in  the  Indo-European  languages. 
Many  times  we  have  to  be  satisfied  with  vague 
conjectures  and  probabilities. 

To  begin,  the  English  '  one,'  Anglo-Saxon  on, 
Latin  unus,  seems  to  have  at  its  basis  a  form 
ai-na  from  a  stem  ai,  which  appears  as  an  am- 
plification of  /,  the  stem  of  the  pronoun  of  third 
person  ;  so  that  at  first  it  meant '  this,' '  this  one.' 


142  T//£  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

'  Two '  is  the  same  as  'twain';  Middle  En- 
glish '  tweien,'  '  twein,'  '  tweie,'  '  twei,'  'twa,' 
'two.'  Anglo-Saxon  'twegcn'  for  the  mascu- 
line, 'twa'  for  the  feminine;  Gothic,  '  twai  ' ; 
German,  '  zwei '  ;  Sankrit, '  dva  ' ;  Greek,  '  duo  ' ; 
Latin,  '  duo.'  All  from  a  base  dva,  whose  ulti- 
mate root  is  not  certain. 

'Three,'  Gothic,  '  threis  ' ;  German,  '  drei  ' ; 
Latin,  '  tres  ' ;  is  very  likely  connected  with  the 
root  tri,  to  go  over,  to  cross.  Does  this  word 
remind  us  of  a  time  when  the  forefathers  of  the 
Indo-European  family  counted  only  up  to  two, 
and  for  the  first  time  their  numeration  was 
pushed  one  degree  further? 

'Four,'  Middle  English,  'feowur';  Swedish, 

*  fyra  ' ;    German,    '  vier  *  ;    Sanskrit,   '  chatvar,' 

*  chatur  '  ;  Latin,  '  quatuor.'  Its  fundamental 
form  is  '  kwatwar.'  The  etymology  is  quite 
uncertain,  although  some  claim  to  see  in  the 
Sanskrit  form  '  chatur,'  for  '  (e)cha-tur,'  the  word 
eka,  one,  and  the  root  of  '  three,'  as  if  it  were 
'  one-(and)-three.' 

'  Five,'  Middle  English, '  f^f '  ;  Gothic, '  f^mf ' ; 
German,  '  funf ' ;  Greek,  'pempe,'  •  pente  ' ; 
Latin,    '  quinque  ' ;  Sanskrit,    '  panchan.'     The 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  143 

fundamental  Aryan  form  is  '  pankan,'  which  the 
Indian  grammarians  refer  to  the  root  pac,  to 
stretch  out,  applying  it  to  the  hand  with  all  the 
fingers  stretched  out. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  anything  certain  about 
the  origin  of  the  four  following  numbers,  al- 
though one  may  suggest  that  Greek  okto,  Latin 
'  octo,'  Gothic  'ahtau,'  eight,  seems  to  be  a 
dual,  either  'two-fours'  or  '  two-of-ten  '  (com- 
pare Latin  '  duo-de-viginti,'  two-of-twenty,  i8). 
'Nine,'  Latin  '  novem,'  Sanskrit  '  navan,'  may 
have  meant  the  '  last,'  namely  the  last  in  the 
series  before  a  new  order  begins. 

'Ten,'  Gothic  '  taihun,'  German  '  zehn,'  Lat- 
in '  decem,'  is  in  Sanskrit  '  dacan,'  w^iich  some 
have  tried  to  rebuild  into  dva-qan,  where  (^an 
represents  the  word  qama,  hand  ;  hence  dva-qan 
'two  hands.'  This  is  ingenious,  but  far  from 
certain. 

The  numbers  from  ten  to  one  hundred  re- 
quire no  explanation,  except  '  eleven '  and 
'twelve.'  '  Eleven  '  is  in  Gothic  *  ain-lif,'  where 
ain  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  an,  one.  Lif'xs  cognate 
with  the  suffix  lika,  ten,  which  we  find  in  Lith- 


144  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

nanian.     Likewise   '  twelve,'  Gothic  twa-lif  is 

•  two-ten.' 

The  word  'hundred,'  is  really  a  compound  ; 
of  Jmnd,  which  means  '  hundred,'  and  red,  the 
same  as  '  read,'  to  speak,  to  reckon,  to  count. 
This  red  is  a  superfluous  addition  ;  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  we  find  'hund'  alone.  This  '  hund  ' 
corresponds  to  Latin  '  centum  '  and    Sanskrit 

*  9ata,'  for '  ganta ' ;  all  of  which  are  to  be  referred 
to  an  Aryan  kanta,  which  is  a  mutilated  form 
from  '  dakanta '  '  tenth,'  meaning  really  the 
'  tenth  ten.'  So  we  find  in  Gothic  taihun-tai- 
hund,  ten-tenth,  for  '  hundred.' 

We  may  also  gather  some  light  about  the 
origin  of  numerals  by  inquiring  into  the  forma- 
tion of  the  names  for  large  numbers,  which  are 
evidently  of  a  more  recent  date  than  the  simple 
ones.  The  Gallas  to  indicate  a  great  number 
use  a  word  wnich  means  '  hair.'  With  the 
Mexicans  the  word  '  hair  '  means  400,  or  a  large 
number.  The  Romans  used  to  say  'sexcenti' 
six  hundred,  to  indicate  a  large  indefinite  num- 
ber. To  mean  a  very  large  number,  say  ten 
billions,  the  Hindoos  used  the  word  '  padma,' 
lotus,  which  contains  numberless  seeds. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  145 

Chilioi,  the  Greek  word  for '  thousand  '  is  very 
likely  connected  with  chiios,  grass;  'as  many 
as  the  grass  in  the  fields.' 

The  Hebrew  elcph,  thousand,  seems  to  have 
meant  at  first  '  herd,'  '  flock.' 

As  for  'thousand,'  Gothic  '  thusundi,'  it  con- 
tains in  its   second  part  '  hund,'  hundred ;  the 
first  part  is  difificult  to  trace  back  to  its  source; 
it  may  be  from  a  root  t/ui,  to  swell,  to  increase, 
giving  thus  the  meaning  of  "  many  hundreds." 
The  numerals  up  to  one  hundred  are  similar 
in  all  the  Indo-European  languages,  but  they 
have  not  a  common  word  for  '  thousand.'    This 
does  not  mean  that  at  the  time  of  their  separa- 
tion they  were  not  able  to  count  up  to  such 
number  ;  they  may  have  done  it  and  employed 
other  words,  such  as  ten  hundreds,  or  the  like. 
But  this  absence  of  a  common  word  for  '  thou- 
sand'proves  at  least  this,  that  their  counting  very 
seldom  exceeded  a  few  hundreds  ;  iience  they 
had  no  necessity  for  a  fixed  numeral  beyond 
one  hundred.    It  shows  also  that  their  life  must 
have  been  very  simple  ;  they  must  have  lived 
in  small  villages  or  settlements,  with  scarcely 
more  than  a  few  hundred  souls;    otherwise  a 


14<5  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

word  for  thousand  would  have  come  to  be  as 
steadily  used  as  that  for  one  hundred.  These 
small  settlements  must  evidently  have  been  in- 
habited by  people  of  the  same  family  or  clan. 
Thus  we  see  that  even  names  of  numbers,  nay 
the  very  absence  of  a  numeral  can  teach  us  not 
a  little  about  the  life  and  civilization  of  a 
people. 


FIFTEENTH  LETTER. 

The  Superstitions  of  Language — Familiar  words  whose  funda- 
mental meaning  is  incompatible  with  our  tenets,  religious, 
moral  or  scientific. 


^QUPERSTITION  '  is,  etymologically,  that 
v3  which  '  remains  or  stands  over.'  When 
an  opinion,  pohtical,  reh'gious  or  scientific,  is 
exploded,  if  it  still  survives  and  lingers  in  some 
minds  which  either  do  not  see  it  to  be  wrong 
or  have  not  the  courage  to  embrace  the  right 
one,  that  opinion  is  a  '  superstition.'  If  a  ship 
is  wrecked  and  some  fragments  remain  floating 
on  the  surface  of  the  sea,  those  fragments  might 
in  a  certain  sense  be  called  the  '  superstitions  ' 
of  the  ship.  Thus,  when  a  word  remains  in  a 
language  after  its  primitive  meaning  has  died 
off,  it  may  be  called  a  '  superstitious  '  word,  as 
it  has  in  a  certain  way  survived  itself  and  its 
original  signification.  The  word  'calculation,' 
for   instance,    is    from    Latin    calculus,  a    little 


# 


I4«  THE  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS. 

stone,  a  pebble,  and  brings  us  back  to  the  time 
when  simple  arithmetical  operations  were 
almost  impossible  without  the  aid  of  pebbles. 
It  contains,  then,  an  idea  which  may  be  said 
'  superstitious,'  as  tne  greatest  calculations  can 
now  be  made  without  the  least  idea  of  resort- 
ing to  the  help  of  pebbles. 

So  the  word  'electricity'  is  a  superstitious 
word,  since  it  contains  the  word  'electron,' 
amber,  on  which  electricity  was  discovered,  but 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  our  ways  of  ob- 
taining electricity. 

In  this  way  almost  all  our  words  may  be  said 
to  contain  some  'superstitious'  element,  as  our 
words  resemble  paintings  where  little  by  little 
the  old  images  disappear  and  new  ones  are 
painted,  always  on  the  same  canvas.  So  that 
the  words  I  have  put  at  the  head  of  this 
letter,  "  the  superstitions  of  language,"  are 
really  too  ambitious.  In  a  certain  sense  they 
could  embrace  the  whole  field  of  language. 
But  I  do  not  mean  to  take  them  in  such  a  wide 
significance.  I  intend  to  call  your  attention  to 
those  words  only,  which  contain  at  the  bottom 
an  idea  not   only  different  from  their  present 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  149 

meaning,  but  implying  the  existence  of  religious 
or  scientific  systems  which  we  have  wholly 
discarded  ;  words  which  we  use  every  day,  but 
belong  in  reality  to  a  world  of  ideas  which  have 
long  been  buried  out  of  existence. 

An  important  category  of  such  words  we  find 
in  expressions  relating  to  the  great  phenomena 
of  the  physical  world,  like  the  rising  and  setting 
of  the  sun  and  the  moon,  the  appearance  of 
stars  and  comets.  It  is  not  yesterday  it 
was  demonstrated,  that  the  succession  of 
night  and  day  is  due  to  the  movement  of  the 
earth,  that  the  sun  has  no  bed  whereto  sleep,  and 
the  night  is  not  a  great  black  coat  which  wraps 
the  world.  Still  every  day  we  speak  of  the 
'  setting  '  of  the  sun,  of  his  '  going  down,'  of  his 
'  rising  ' ;  as  well  as  of  the  '  rising  '  of  the  dawn 
and  the  *  falling '  of  the  night.  The  French 
say  explicitly  that  the  sun  '  se  couche,'  goes  to 
bed,  and  '  se  leve,'  gets  up.  Thus,  notwith- 
standing our  great  astronomical  systems,  our 
daily  speech  is  yet  teeming  with  ideas  belong- 
ing to  an  entirely  primitive  age  of  mankind. 

Not  less  striking  is  the  use  of  words  which 
imply  a  direct  influence  of  the  heavenly  bodies 


u 


%rJu' 


\J.kX^ 


150  T//£  FORTUiVES   OF    WORDS. 

upon  the  fate  of  each  individual  man.  The 
word  '  influence  '  itself  and  its  doublet  '  influ- 
enza,' imply  a  belief  in  such  superstition,  as 
they  allude  to  the  '  influx'  of  planets  upon  our 
fate,  the  '  flowing'  of  their  virtue  into  our  lives 
('  in-fluere  ').  '  Influenza,'  was  at  first  an  epi- 
demic catarrh,  said  to  be  caused  by  the 
planets. 

It  was  once  believed  that  the  star  of  Jove 
was  a  gay,  joyful  star,  and  a  man  born  under  it 
would  be  happy  and  mirthful.  We  still  speak 
of  a  '  jovial '  temperament.  The  influence  of  the 
planet  Saturn  was  said  to  be  gloomy  and  stern, 
and  we  call  such  a  disposition  'saturnine.' 
Analogous  origins  must  be  ascribed  to  '  vene- 
real,''  mercurial,'  '  martial,' etc.  We  still  call 
an  insane  man  a  'lunatic,'  as  if  we  still  believed 
that  insanity  is  caused  by  the  moon. 

We  believe  no  longer  in  any  communication 
with  evil  spirits,  or  conjurations,  or  other  works 
of  magic.  Still  we  say :  she  has  '  bewitched  ' 
me ;  she  is  '  charming '  ;  his  eloquence  is 
'magic,'  etc. 

We  speak  of  '  paper,'  and  '  books,'  and  '  vol- 
umes,' although  no  'papyrus'  but  rags  are  used 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  151 

to  make  paper,  and  books  are  no  longer  written 
on  '  beechen  boards,'  nor  are  they  '  rolled  up." 

Few  fields,  however,  are  so  crowded  with 
'  superstitious'  and  entirely  wrong  expressions 
as  that  concerning  the  constitution  and  func- 
tion of  our  bodily  organs.  Our  everyday 
physiology  is  full  of  terms  so  inconsistent  with 
all  our  accepted  notions  and  certain  knowledge, 
that  it  is  wonderful  how  we  can  go  on  using 
them  without  apparently  at  all  being  aware 
of  their  utter  incongruity.  By  this  time  we 
know  something  about  the  true  anatomy  and 
physiology  of  our  body ;  still  we  are  con- 
stantly speaking  of  a  man  of  'good-humor'  or 
'bad  humor,'  etc.,  as  if  we  still  believed  that  in 
our  body  circulate  four  humors,  the  famous  four 
humors  of  ancient  physicians,  namely,  the  chol- 
eric, the  melancholy,  the  phlegmatic  and  the 
sanguine,  and  that  on  the  relative  quantity  and 
mixing  of  these  humors  depend  the  nature 
and  disposition  of  an  individual.  The  words 
'temper,'  'temperament,'  'phlegmatic,'  'san- 
guine,' etc.,  allude  also  to  these  famous  four 
humors. 

It  would  be  very  interesting  to  study  the  his- 


152  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

tory  of  the  people's  notions  about  the  con- 
struction and  the  functions  of  our  body,  as  con- 
veyed by  popular  language.  For  instance,  we 
seem  to  have  a  vague  notion  that  the  brain  is  the 
centre  of  intellectual  life,  while  our  affections 
and  passions  arc  located  in  our  heart.  Why  we 
should  have  such  an  opinion,  it  is  diflficult  to 
say;  still  we  may  be  sure  that  centuries  will 
elapse  before  all  traces  of  such  superstition  have 
disappeared  from  common  parlance,  before 
people  stop  saying  :  he  is  a  'good-hearted  '  man, 
a  '  kind-hearted  '  fellow,  his  '  heart '  is.good,  etc. 
The  Greeks  had  even  a  stranger  notion.  All 
that  part  of  psychic  life  which  we  refer  to  the 
heart  or  to  the  brain,  they  attributed  to  the 
midriff,  because ///rr/<!  (from  which  our  'phre- 
nology') meant  at  first  simply  '  midriff.' 

Not  less  '  superstitious  '  is  our  stock  of  com- 
mon expressions  concerning  such  phenomena 
of  nature  as  rain,  storm,  lightning,  etc.  But 
you  can  pursue  this  research  b\'  }'ourself.  I 
am  satisfied  with  having  called  your  attention 
to  the  subject. 


SIXTEENTH  LETTER. 

Why  Words  Change  their  Meanings — Influence  of  Progress — 
Religious,  Social  and  Political  Crises — The  Advent  of 
Christianity — The  French  Revolution — Great  Inven- 
tions and  Discoveries — Influence  of  the  Learned  and  of 
the  Unlearned. 


WE  might  now  inquire,  as  you  suggest,  why 
is  it  that  words  acquire  new  meanings, 
sometimes  so  dii^erent  from  the  original  ones, 
and  ivhcn  do  such  changes  in  meaning  take 
place? 

It  is  a  good  philosophic  question  that  you 
propose  to  me,  and  I  hasten  to  answer  it  with 
the  greatest  pleasure,  since  nothing  is  so  fraught 
with  intellectual  joy,  nothing  is  so  worthy  of 
man  after  all,  as  the  study  of  causes.  The  child 
and  the  uneducated  listen,  astonished  and 
wondering,  to  the  anecdotes  and  descriptions 
of  battles  and  sieges  and  other  famous  deeds. 
But  the  wise  do  not  stop  at  facts  ;  they  want 
to  ascend  to  their  causes,  and  see  the  thread  of 


154  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

law  that  knits  them  together,  fashions  and 
moulds  them.  Besides,  no  other  study 
better  than  that  of  the  causes  for  which 
the  meanings  of  words  change,  enables  us  to 
see  the  real  intimate  connection  between  the 
life  of  a  people  and  its  language,  between  his- 
tory and  philology. 

The  meanings  of  words  change  because  the 
life  of  the  people  changes.  There  is  a  slow,  con- 
stant succession  of  modifications  in  the  mind 
of  each  individual  man  ;  no  day  goes  by  with- 
out causing  some  of  his  ideas,  some  of  his  ways 
of  looking  at  the  world,  to  be  more  or  less  mod- 
ified. The  change  from  day  to  day  is  so  slight 
that  generally  none  perceive  it  ;  but  after  ten, 
twenty,  thirty  years  one's  mind  is  so  changed 
that  he  will  often  wonder  how  he  could,  years 
ago,  have  had  such  or  such  opinions  on  this  and 
that.  The  same  change  takes  place,  more  or 
less  rapidly,  with  every  nation,  as  nations  are 
only  made  up  of  individuals.  While  such  modi- 
fications take  place  in  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple, what  happens  in  language,  which  is  the 
organ  of  their  minds?  Language  follows  and 
fashions  itself  according  to  the  modified  state  of 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  155 

their  minds.  When  the  ocean,  in  its  perpetual 
oscillations,  covers  or  abandons  a  tract  of  land, 
this  land  adapts  itself  to  its  new  conditions : 
vegetation  changes,  grows  or  dies ;  by  and  by 
the  composition  of  the  soil  is  changed,  and  its 
shape  and  entire  appearance  undergo  important 
modifications.  Analogous  changes  happen  in 
language  in  respect  to  the  mental  modifications 
of  the  people.  When  a  certain  idea  is  modified, 
narrowed  or  widened,  debased  or  enhanced,  the 
meaning  of  the  word  which  conveys  that  idea, 
which  is  the  *  sign  '  of  that  idea,  is  also  modi- 
fied in  the  same  sense,  narrowed  or  widened, 
enhanced  or  debased.  Every  now  and  then  a 
new  word  is  introduced,  but  experience  shows 
that  linguistic  inventiveness  is  rather  poor.  We 
prefer,  in  language  at  least,  to  modify  the  tools 
left  us  by  our  forefathers  than  to  invent  new 
ones. 

Thus,  slowly,  in  the  course  of  generations,  as 
the  ways  of  thinking  and  the  modes  of  life  of 
the  people  change,  words  alter  their  meanings 
accordingly.  But,  as  in  the  life  of  individual 
men  sometimes  an  event  takes  place  which 
alone,  by  itself,  changes  their  moral  and  mate 


I5<J  THE  rOA' TUXES  OF    WORDS. 

rial  life  more  than  it  would  have  been  changed 
in  twenty  years  of  ordinary  daily  modifications, 
the  lives  of  nations  are  sometimes  wrung  by  so 
mighty  crises  that  the  changes  of  a  few  years 
are  deeper  and  wider  than  those  of  several  gen- 
erations. It  is  during  such  abnormal  accelera- 
tions of  life  in  nations,  that  the  most  rapid 
changes  in  language  occur. 

In  the  history  of  modern  nations  no  event  is 
recorded  whose  importance  can  compare  with 
the  advent  of  Christianity.  As  the  new  light 
flashed  up  over  the  pagan  world,  an  im- 
mense change  happened  in  the  minds  of  the 
people.  The  theories  of  ethics,  the  views 
of  life  and  the  world,  the  fundamental  notions 
of  God,  man,  country  and  mankind  were 
changed.  The  intellectual  vision  of  man  was, 
so  to  speak,  reversed.  The  focus  of  life,  which 
was  on  earth,  was  transferred  to  heaven.  They 
saw  glory  where  first  they  saw  contempt  ; 
learned  to  despise  what  first  they  had  admired  ; 
tore  down  political  and  social  barriers  and 
raised  moral  ones ;  took  delight  in  that  which 
they  had  scorned  and  hated  ;  saw  snakes  and 
poison  in  that  which  first  appeared  as  a  para- 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  157 

disc  of  flowers  and  music  almost  heavenly. 
How  was  language  affected  by  such  changes  ? 
The  men,  in  whom  the  poles  of  spiritual  life  had 
been  so  suddenly  turned,  had  no  new  language 
at  their  command  to  express  their  new  ideas 
and  feelings.  What  could  they  do  but  modify 
the  meanings  of  the  old  familiar  words  so  as  to 
represent  the  changed  state  of  their  minds  ? 
So  they  did,  and  were  not  the  great  Christian 
revolution  recorded  in  a  thousand  other  ways,  a 
great  proof  of  it  we  would  have  in  the  changes 
that  Latin  words  have  undergone  with  the  blos- 
soming of  the  new  civilization.  '  Deus,'  which 
meant  a  national  or  ethnical  personification  of 
one  of  the  best  human  gifts,  as  strength,  or 
valor,  or  beauty,  or  talent,  or  wisdom,  came  to 
mean  '  one  '  divinity,  impersonal,  ruling  the 
world  ab  etei-no,  the  father  of  '  all  '  men.  The 
names  of  'country,'  'humanity,'  'brother,' 
'  love,'  '  neighbor,'  'charit}'  '  acquired  meanings 
entirely  new.  The  word  fides,  which  applied 
only  to  relations  of  man  to  man,  assumed  a  new 
signification  :  the  trusting  of  man  in  God,  his 
heavenly  father.  '  Hope,'  '  angel,'  '  saint,'  'par- 
adise,' 'grace,'  '  servus '  (slave),  all    were   trans- 


15^  'Jim  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS. 

formed  in  their  meanings  by  the  magic  touch 
of  the  new  idea.  '  Altar,'  '  sacrifice,'  '  religion,' 
'penitence,'  'contrition,'  'humility,  arc  also 
words  taken  from  the  pagan  world,  but  how 
different  has  their  meaning  become  !  '  Martyr' 
meant  simply  '  witness  ; '  but  what  a  glorious 
transformation  of  meaning  it  has   undergone! 

Another  great  sudden  movement  occurred 
with  the  French  revolution.  The  result  would 
surprise  us,  had  we  to  cull  out  diligently  all  the 
terms  and  words  which  have  been,  directly  or 
indirectly,  either  introduced,  or  revived,  or 
made  prominent  and  common  by  that  political 
cyclone.  The  very  terms  of  '  republic,'  '  citi- 
zen,' 'liberty,'  'equality,'  'brotherhood'  had 
nothing,  in  the  previous  centuries,  of  that  pecu- 
liar glow  which  now  lends  them  a  kind  of  magic 
fascination.  The  terms  of  '  social  contract,' 
'  convention,'  '  solidarity,'  are  linked  therewith 
indissolubly.  Nor  can  we  separate  from  it  such 
words  of  evil  omen  as  '  dragonnades,'  'sanscu- 
lotte,' '  terrorism,'  '  noyades,'  '  guillotine  ; '  just 
as  the  words  '  petroleuse,'  '  dynamitist,' are  con- 
nected with  more  recent  troubles. 

Changes    in    language,   analogous    to  those 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  I59 

brought  about  by  important  social  or  political 
events,  are  caused  by  great  inventions  or  indus- 
trial improvements.  Look  over  our  diction- 
aries :  what  an  immense  array  of  words  pertain- 
ing to  bows  and  arrows  and  catapults  and 
spears,  mail,  armor,  lie  there  buried  as  in 
a  grave,  no  longer  mentioned  in  living  speech 
except  as  the  names  of  dead  people  are  men- 
tioned in  connection  with  facts  of  the  past.  All 
these  things  and  their  names  were  dropped  as 
soon  as  gunpowder  was  invented.  And  what 
a  new  army  of  words  came  and  is  coming  into 
use  by  its  increasing  applications  !  Think  of 
all  the  varieties  of  guns,  the  various  kinds  of 
firearms,  the  mining  and  metallurgic  industries, 
together  with  all  the  trades  connected  with 
them;  think  of  the  numerous  words  which  had 
to  be  made  or  modified  in  order  to  designate 
all  the  new  tools,  implements,  products  and 
processes,  and  you  will  have  an  idea  how  great 
and  far-reaching  maybe  the  linguistic  bearings 
even  of  one  invention  alone.  Think  of  the 
press,  the  steam  engine,  the  cotton  engine,  the 
power  loom,  the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the 
electric  light  and  all  the  other  great  inventions 


i6o  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

of  this  century.  ■  None  can  tell  how  greatly  our 
daily  stock  of  words  will  be  increased  and  modi- 
fied by  these  new  agencies.  In  the  words  of 
Marsh :  "  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  substitution 
of  cotton  for  linen,  and  the  supply  of  tissues  by 
large  manufacturing  establishments,  instead  of 
by  domestic  labor,  have  alone  driven  out  of  use 
seven  or  eight  per  cent,  of  the  words  which 
formed  the  staple  of  household  conversation  in 
the  agricultural  districts  of  the  Northern 
States." 

The  great  crises  in  the  moral  and  political 
world,  and  the  great  industrial  inventions,  are 
a  practical  illustration  of  how  changes  take 
place  in  the  meanings  of  words,  as  the  people 
are  either  obliged  to  modify  the  meanings  of 
old  words,  or  to  coin  new  ones. 

But  apart  from  these  great  and  sudden 
changes,  there  are,  as  I  mentioned  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  letter,  slow  but  steady  forces  at 
work  which  bring  about  new  words  and  new 
meanings  in  old  words.  Every  man  who  lives, 
be  he  learned  or  otherwise,  contributes  to  the 
development  of  language.  In  a  certain  sense 
even  the  most  awkward  and   idiotic  co-operate 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  i6i 

in  such  development,  at  least  by  compelling  the 
intelligent  to  find  words  to  designate  their  awk- 
wardness and  idiocy. 

Looking  at  men  as  instruments  for  the  devel- 
opment of  language,  we  may  divide  them,  at 
large,  into  two  categories  :  the  learned,  namely, 
those  who  act  on  language  reflectively,  con- 
sciously ;  and  the  unlearned,  or  those  who  use 
language  almost  as  a  natural  power,  without 
reflecting  upon  or  knowledge  of  its  nature  and 
structure.  The  former  may,  and  generally  do, 
contribute  their  share  to  the  making  of  the  lan- 
guage of  literature  and  conversation,  to  the  in- 
troducing of  new  terms  for  arts,  fashions,  fur- 
niture, civilities  and  refinements  of  life.  But 
their  best  work  is  accomplished  in  the  highest 
field  of  thought.  They  are  naturally  the  pio- 
neers of  the  intellectual  world.  It  belongs  to 
them  to  'clear  the  ground  '  by  discriminating, 
examining  and  establishing  the  proper  meaning 
of  words,  and,  when  necessar)%  to  introduce  new 
ones.  The  lawyer,  the  physician,  the  philoso- 
pher, the  astronomer,  the  chemist,  the  artist, 
in  fact  all  men  who  work  especially  with  their 
brains,  are  obliged,  every  now  and  then,  to  in- 


1 62  l^HE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

troducc  a  new  word,  to  discuss  and  ascertain 
the  meaning  of  an  old  one,  and  sometimes  so  to 
modify  its  meaning  as  to  bend  it  to  the  exig- 
encies of  new  ideas.  Here  you  will  certainly 
think  of  those  numerous  scientific  words,  first 
coined  in  this  century,  which  are  quickly  be- 
coming a  part  of  our  daily  speech.  Still  more 
important,  in  my  mind,  than  these  new  words, 
are  those  discriminations  and  modifications  of 
meaning  which  science  and  philosophy  bring 
into  old  and  well-worn  but  all-important  words. 
To  some  people  it  seems  almost  idle  to  discuss 
what  is  the  true  meaning  of  *  nation.'  Still,  on 
what  we  understand  by  such  word  depends 
mostly  what  kind  of  political  arrangements  we 
must  aim  at,  and  whether  'patriotism'  or  'in- 
ternationalism, is  one  of  the  first  duties  of  man. 
It  matters  not  little  for  the  social  and  political 
world  whether  by  '  property '  we  mean  one 
thing  or  another.  Apparently  what  idler  dis- 
cussion than  to  fight  about  the  meaning  of  the 
word  '  species'  ?  Up  to  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago  it  was  generally  believed  that  '  species  '  was 
something  fixed  in  nature,  unchangeable,  dis- 
tinct, and  by  itself.     Now,  after  the  studies  of 


THE  FORTUNES  OP    WORDS.  1O3 

Lamark  and,  above  all,  Darwin,  it  is  generally 
accepted  that  '  species  '  means  nothing  natur- 
ally fixed  and  unchangeable,  but  is  merely  a 
classificatory  term,  as  Nature  presents  a  contin- 
uous, uninterrupted  chain.  In  the  change  of 
meaning  of  this  word  is,  after  all,  the  '  summa  ' 
of  the  evolution-theory,  whose  consequences 
nobody  yet  can  foretell.  Thus  the  highest 
speculations  of  the  greatest  minds  are  first  em- 
bodied in  the  new  meanings  of  old  words,  and 
then  stretch  out  in  numberless  applications, 
moral,  social,  religious  and  political.  Because 
— it  is  useless  to  deny  it — the  mass  of  mankind 
is  led  on  by  few  speculative  minds  who,  long 
before  the  others,  are  able  to  catch  glimpses  of 
the  highest  verities.  _ 

But  let  us  go  back  to  our  changes  in  language. 
Those  who  are  not,  or  are  only  superficially  edu- 
cated, contribute  also  a  great  deal  to  the  devel- 
opment of  language,  but  in  other  directions. 
One  of  the  most  common  wa)'s  is  not  only  to 
alter  words  in  their  forms,  but  also  to  adapt 
them  to  more  homely  and  familiar  meanings 
than  they  were  intended  for.  The  word 
'theory,'  for  instance,  which  was  at  first  quite 


1 64  THE  FORTUNES  OF    IVORDS. 

a  solemn  word,  as  it  meant  a  'beholding'  of  a 
certain  order  of  things,  an  abstract  and  specu- 
lative conclusion,  in  the  common  parlance  has 
become  synonymous  with  '  a  mere  opinion,'  the 
passing  whim  of  a  moment.  'Policy'  once 
was  said  only  of  the  greatest  of  arts — that 
of  ruling  men.  Nowadays  the  newsboy  and 
the  applewoman  speak  of  their  'policy'  in 
conducting  their  trade.  'Conducting'  re- 
minds me  of  '  conductor,'  a  leader,  which  once 
doubtless  could  not  have  been  said  properly  of 
a  man  whose  business  is  to  collect  the  fares  in 
a  car.  A  thousand  similar  instances  will  sug- 
gest themselves  to  whomsoever  will  stop  a  mo- 
ment to  consider  these  phenomena.  But  these, 
which  certainly  are  modifications  of  language, 
can  hardly  be  said  to  be  contributions  toward 
the  growth  of  it ;  just  as  the  walling  of  a  win- 
dow or  the  narrowing  of  a  door  cannot  be  called 
additions  to  a  building. 

There  are,  however,  some  ways  by  which  the 
uneducated  and  the  semi-educated — in  other 
words,  the  humblest  and  the  middle  classes  in 
the  intellectual  society — contribute  very  largely 
to  the  growth  of  language  :  namely,  by  naming 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    IVQRDS.  165 

the  new  things  with  which  they  come  into  con- 
tact, or  by  discovering  new  relations  or  new 
properties  in  things  known.  Think  of  the 
countless  additions  to  our  dictionaries  that  arise 
in  this  way !  The  sailor  who  first  uses  a  new 
knot  in  his  ropes,  or  discovers  a  new  shape  in 
the  waves  or  in  the  clouds,  or  a  new  way  of 
stretching  his  sail,  or  turning  his  boat,  or  setting 
his  helm,  must  find  words  to  designate  these 
new  things.  While  talking  about  them,  either 
to  himself  or  to  his  listeners,  a  word  will  occur 
which  is  accepted  at  once  and  by  and  by  will 
become  the  recognized  word  to  designate  such 
or  such  another  thing.  The  same  happens 
with  the  farmer,  the  horseman,  the  v/eaver,  the 
cowboy.  No  day  goes  by  without  some  new 
tool  or  new  process  or  new  aspect  of  nature  or 
men  being  discovered.  This  thing  discovered 
'  must '  be  expressed.  As  long  as  it  is  not  ex- 
pressed, as  long  as  it  is  dumb,  it  is  as  though 
it  were  not.  But  to  express  it,  either  a  new 
word  must  be  imagined  (which  as  we  know,  is 
not  often  the  case),  or  a  word  taken  from 
another  language  in  which  the  thing  has  already 
found  its  expression,  or  a  new  meaning  must 


1 66  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

be  driven  into  an  old  word.  Think  of  these 
facts  which  are  going  on  without  pause,  and 
you  will  realize  once  more  what  might  and 
greatness  is  in  language,  and  how  true  it  is 
that  no  religious  creed  or  political  constitu- 
tion is  so  faithful  a  mirror  of  the  nature  of 
a  people  as  its  language. 

Not  less  important  than  the  discovery  of 
new  things  is  the  discovery  of  new  relations  of 
things.  This  is  the  basis  of  the  metaphoric 
process,  which  is  of  the  greatest  consequence 
in  the  development  of  language.  As  I  had 
already  occasion  to  mention,  it  is  the  constant 
process  of  our  mind  to  look  at  things  and  com- 
pare them.  When  we  discover  any  relation  or 
similiarity  between  two  things,  we  use,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  second,  words  which  had  only 
been  strictly  applied  to  the  first.  We  see  that 
a  magnet  attracts  iron.  We  see  that  a  strong, 
eloquent  man  fascinates,  attracts  other  men  to 
himself.  The  similarity  is  very  little :  the  at- 
traction by  the  great  man  is  quite  different 
from  that  of  the  magnet.  Still  we  think  such 
a  scanty  thread  of  resemblance  enough  to 
justify  us  in  saying  "  that  man  is  magnetic"; 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  167 

"he  has  great  magnetic  influence."  Wine  or 
any  other  beverage  which  has  gone  sour,  of- 
fends our  taste  and  hurts  our  stomach.  This 
has  not  very  much  in  common  with  the  man- 
ners of  a  man  who  is  brusque,  unamiable  and 
of  a  fretful  disposition.  Still  we  feel  author- 
ized to  say  that  he  has  a  '  sour  '  temper,  as 
if  everything  in  him  had  turned  acid  and  dis- 
tasteful. 

Some  wines,  when  the  bottle  is  uncorked, 
sally  forth  with  a  brilliant  effervescence  which 
we  call  "sparkling."  And  when  a  man  is  witty, 
original,  and  his  conversation  teems  with  fine 
or  amusing  repartees,  like  so  many  little  jets  of 
firework,  we  say  that  his  mind,  his  talent  is 
'  sparkling.'  The  connection  between  the  two 
kinds  of  '  sparklingness  '  is  very  thin;  it  is  for 
the  'imagination'  of  the  reader  or  listener  to 
bridge  over  from  one  kind  to  the  other.  Imagin- 
ation is  the  great  life-spring  of  language.  It  is 
the  business  of  the  imagination  to  see  relations 
between  different  things  ;  it  is  the  business  of 
imagination  to  grasp  them  when  they  are  so 
laconically  uttered.  It  is  the  greatest,  the 
most  important,  the  most  poetic  part  of  our 


1 68  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

reasoning  and  our  language  at  the  same  time — 
this  bringing  near  two  distant  things  and  hitting 
off,  so  to  say,  in  one  word  the  point  which  they 
they  have  in  common. 

Not  all,  however,  such  comparisons  are  right 
and  sensible,  nor  are  the  words  that  express 
them  alwa}-s  in  good  taste  and  clear.  This 
leads  me  to  speak  of  another  phenomenon  in 
the  growth  of  language,  which  is  connected 
with  this  metaphorical  process,  and  of  which 
we  hear  a  good  deal  every  day.  I  mean  slang. 
'  Slang  '  is  so  peculiar  a  fact,  and  is  growing  so 
steadily  that  it  may  fairly  claim  a  chapter  all 
to  itself. 


SEVENTEENTH    LETTER. 


SLANG. 


Slang — Its  Merits  and  Demerits  —  Purity  of  Language  ; 
Strength  and  Beauty — How  to  Preserve  and  Promote 
Them. 


FIRST,  what  is  'slang-?'  The  origin  of  the 
word  is  not  quite  ascertained.  Most  likely- 
it  comes  to  us  from  the  Scandinavian.  But, 
whatever  its  origin,  what  do  we  mean  nowadays 
by  this  word  ?  Worcester  says  :  "  Slang,  vile, 
low,  or  ribald  language  ;  the  cant  of  sharpers 
or  of  the  vulgar;  gibberish."  Which  definition 
is  far  from  being  correct.  It  is  too  exaggerated. 
A  great  dictionary  should  be  just  to  every  part 
of  the  language  ;  yea,  even  unto  slang.  Many 
an  accomplished  lady  will  be  ready  to  admit, 
with  a  smiling  flush,  that  she  does  use  slang 
every  now  and  then  ;  "  only  for  fun,  you  know," 
and  with  her  intimate  friends.     But  she  would 


1 7°  THE  FORTUNES  OF    IVOA'DS. 

be  justly  indignant,  if  you  should  so  construe 
her  words  as  to  think  her  guilty  of  using  "vile, 
low,  or  ribald  language,"  or  even  "  the  cant  of 
sharpers  or  of  the  vulgar." 

Sla7ig  is  dealt  a  little  more  fairly  by  Skeat, 
who  so  defines  it :  "  Low,  vulgar  language,  a 
colloquial  and  familiar  mode  of  expression." 
This  definition  would  be  greatly  improved  if  it 
were  cut  in  two.  There  should  be  a  period 
after  'language.'  "Low,  vulgar  language" 
seems  to  have  been  once  the  meaning  of  '  slang.' 
But  now  it  is  safe  to  say,  I  think,  that  the  best 
people  speak  of  slang  merely  as  "  a  colloquial  and 
familiar  mode  of  expression."  You  hear  very 
often,  even  among  the  best  educated:  "this  is 
slang!"  when  doubtless  no  one  means  to  utter 
a  reproach  for  vulgar  language.  The  teacher 
insists  with  his  pupils  that  they  must  be  careful 
to  avoid  'slang'  in  writing.  Surely  he  does 
not  mean  that  they  must  not  use  vulgar  or  low 
or  ribald  language.  Pupils  that  need  such 
warnings,  need  something  else  far  more  than 
the  study  of  fine  language.  The  teacher  intends 
simply  to  admonish  them  against  the  exagger- 
ated use  of  such  phrases,  words  and  idioms  as 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  iji 

are  daily  heard  in  familiar  intercourse,  but  are 
not  yet  admitted  into  good  literature.  Indeed 
this  and  none  else  seems  to  be  the  meaning  in 
which  the  word  '  slang '  is  generally  accepted 
nowadays  :  "  A  colloquial  mode  of  expression 
which  is  not  yet  acknowledged  by  good  writers." 

And  as  such,  let  me  say  that,  in  a  general  way, 
I  am  not  a  particular  hater  of  "slang."  Many  a 
time  it  happened  to  me — and  to  you  also,  I  am 
sure — to  hear  ladies,  educated  and  in  every  way 
refined,  say,  with  an  airof  exaggerated  compunc- 
tion w^hich  is  generally  *  charming  *  :  "  O,  poor 
me!  IV/iat  did  I  say?  Such  slang!"  Did 
you  never  feel,  then,  like  saying  to  the  fair  peni- 
tents :  "  Take  courage  !  Do  not  worry  !  here 
is  one  who  is  ready  to  fight  for  you  and  King 
Slang  !  "  Indeed,  I  do  not  see  why  we  should 
be  afraid  of  slang  and  dislike  it  so.  Only  here, 
as  everywhere,  discrimination  is  necessary  ;  and 
in  order  to  discriminate  soundly  let  us  investi- 
gate how  slang  originates,  and  how  many  kinds 
of  it  we  have. 

I  stated  in  my  preceding  letter  that  language 
develops  mostly  by  metaphorical  process,  by 
applying  to  one  thing  a  word  which  strictly  be- 


172  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

longs  to  another.  In  this  metaphorizing  we 
may  sin  against  good  sense  or  against  good 
taste.  Many  metaphors  in  Ossian,  Victor  Hugo 
and  his  followers  are  against  good  sense  ;  many 
metaphors  employed  by  uneducated  or  coarse 
men  are  against  good  taste.  What  we  call 
'slang,'  grows  exactly  in  the  same  way,  by  me- 
taphorical process ;  but  our  good  sense  and 
taste  must  help  us  to  discriminate  between 
good  and  bad  slang. 

Lawyers  who  have  a  very  easy  case  on  hand 
and  are  certain  of  success,  call  it,  by  a  metaphor 
easy  to  understand,  a  "walk-over."  Students 
of  medicine  call  a  corpse  a  "stiff."  I  heard 
somebody  call  a  travelling  tutor  a  "  bear-lead- 
er," and  "  book-keeper"  one  who  never  returns 
borrowed  books.  Water  is  often  spoken  of  as 
"  Adam's  ale,"  and  a  lady  who  felt  tired  and 
depressed  was  advised  by  a  friend  to  "  key  her- 
self up."  These  are  all  typical  examples  of 
slang,  and,  as  such,  we  must  scrutinize  them 
closely. 

The  walk-over  of  the  lawyers  is  easy  to  un- 
derstand ;  it  is  not  only  clear,  but  vivid  and 
forcible.     It  is  therefore  probable  that  this  bit 


I 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  I73 

of  slang  may  find  its  way  into  common  language 
and  books.  Doubtless  our  language  would  not 
lose  anything  thereby.  It  is  a  metaphor  not 
a  whit  more  bold  than  that  by  which  we  call 
'  yarn  '  a  strange  and  improbable  story.  Wor- 
cester registers  '  yarn  '  in  this  sense,  but  marks 
it  '  vulgar."  But  now  who  would  dare  say  it 
is  vulgar,  since  everybody  uses  it,  and  it  is  after 
all  a  very  good  word,  with  a  flavor  of  that  sound 
humor  which  attaches  to  so  many  words  for 
which  we  are  indebted  to  our  good,  brave  and 
mirthful  "  tars  ?  "  '  Walk-over  '  is  not  recorded 
yet  in  Worcester's  dictionary,  but  I  would  not 
wonder  if  we  should  find  it  there  in  the  next 
edition.  Of  course,  the  editor  would  relieve  his 
philological  scrupulousness  by  adding,  between 
two  brackets,  "vulgar"  or  "  common,"  but  we 
would  forgive  him,  sure  as  we  are  that  in  a  sub- 
sequent edition  he  would  take  his  notation 
away  from  "  walk-over,"  as  well  as  from 
"  yarn." 

Father  Adam  and  his  modes  of  life  are  so 
well  known  that  when  we  say  "  Adam's  ale," 
no  misunderstanding  is  possible.  Moreover, 
there  is  in  this  idiom  that  subtle  seasoning  of 


174  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

wit  which  preserves  words  as  salt  preserves  food. 
All  the  odds,  therefore,  are  for  this  idiom  being 
promoted  from  the  ranks  of  slang  to  become  a 
part  of  the  common  language.  Many  similar 
idioms  have  already  run  over  this  road,  as 
**  Noah's  drink  "  for  '  wine,'  to  say  nothing  of 
the  well-known  "Adam's  apple,"  which  is  due 
to  a  silly  legend  that  this  protuberance  was 
produced  by  eating  the  fatal  apple. 

A  "bear  leader"  for  a  'travelling  tutor' 
is  witty  or  not,  accordingly,  whether  we 
ask  the  tutor  himself  or  his  youngsters. 
As  a  language-making  element,  however,  it 
is  very  poor.  It  is  too  particular.  No 
body  can  understand  it  without  explanation. 
It  has  therefore  no  chances  of  taking  a  perma- 
nent place  in  language,  unless  some  great  writer 
takes  it  upon  himself  to  introduce  it  and  chape- 
ron it. 

The  "stiff"  of  the  medical  students  has 
even  less  chances,  as  not  only  it  is  confined 
to  a  particular  craft,  but  is  vulgar  and 
coarse. 

As  for  "book-keeper,"  in  the  sense  of  book- 
retainer,  it  is  simply  a  pun.     Puns  may  belong 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  175 

to  the  good  things  of  life,  but  there  is  no  place 
for  them  in  dictionaries. 

Many  would  be  severe  against  the  use  of  the 
verb  "to  key  up  "  for  '  to  tone  up  '  one's  self. 
Still,  as  we  speak  of  the  key  to  a  riddle,  the  key 
to  a  book,  etc.,  I  do  not  see  why  we  should  ob- 
ject so  much  to  an  analogous  metaphor  taken 
from  the  musical  key.  The  words  '  tone  '  and 
'  tonic  '  themselves  are  derived  from  the  world 
of  music.  They  mean  properly  '  to  stretch,'  to 
stretch  the  cliords  of  a  musical  instrument  in 
order  to  strengthen  its  notes.  Hence  the 
meaning  of  'tonic'  as  invigorating,'  *  strength- 
ening.' 

Now,  looking  over  these  typical  specimens  of 
slang,  we  notice  :  First,  that  all  of  them  consist 
of  some  kind  of  metaphor ;  second,  that  those 
of  them  which  can  be  easily  and  universally  un- 
derstood, which  do  not  hurt  our  good  taste  or 
good  sense,  are  a  good  contribution  to  our  lan- 
guage and  are  a  desirable  leaven  in  our  daily 
speech  ;  third,  that  those  which  are  too  partic- 
ular to  be  generally  understood,  or  coarse  and 
vulgar,  or  are  merely  ?ijcn  dc  mots,  are  doomed 
to  live  an  ephemeral  and   much    circumscribed 


176  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

life.  The  trouble  with  what  is  currently  called 
"slang"  is,  that  much  of  it  belongs  to  this  last 
class,  and  is  therefore  destined  to  die  without 
ever  becoming  a  true  part  of  any  living  lan- 
guage. If  we  had  a  good  record  of  the  slang 
in  vogue  fifty  }'ears  ago,  we  would  have  the 
most  ample  proof  of  what  I  say.  I  had  occa- 
sion to  look  over  a  "  classical  dictionary  of  the 
vulgar  tongue  by  Francis  Grose,  Esq.,  F.  A.  S." 
published  in  London  "  MDCCLXXXVIII."  It 
is  incredible  how  few  words  and  idioms  therein 
recorded  have  survived  or  would  be  understood 
at  all  in  our  day.  I  find,  for  instance,  "floating 
academy"  for  the  lighters  on  board  of  which 
were  confined  the  persons  condemned  to  hard 
labor. 

'  Adam's  ale,'  beer. 
'Air  and  exercise,'  he  has  had  air  and  exercise, 

i.e.,  he  has  been  whipped  at  the  cart's  tail. 
'Alderman,'  a  roasted   turkey  garnished    with 

sausages  ;  the  latter  are  supposed  to  represent 

the  gold  chain  worn  by  those  magistrates. 
'Altitudes,'  the  man  is  in  his  altitudes,  i.e.,  he 

is  drunk. 
'Anabaptist,' a  pickpocket  caught  in  the  fact. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  177 

and  punished  with  the  discipline  of  the  pump 

or  horse-pond. 
*  Apothecary,'  to  talk   like   an  apothecary, />., 

to  talk  nonsense. 
'  Babes  in   the  wood,'  rogues  in  the  stocks  or 

pillory. 
He  squints  'like  a   bag   of  nails,'  i.e.,  his  eyes 

are  directed   as  many  ways  as  the   points  of 

nails  in  a  bag. 
'  Beggar  maker,'  an  ale-house  keeper. 
'  Beggars'  bullets,'  stones. 
'  Bow-wow  mutton,"  dog's  flesh. 
'  A  brother  of  the  quill,'  an  author. 
'  A  brother  of  the  string,'  a  fiddler, 
'A  brother  of  the  whip,'  a  coachman. 
'  Butcher's  meat,'  meat  taken  up  on  trust,  which 

continues  the  butcher's  until  paid  for. 
'A   quarrel-picker,'   a  glazier,   from   the    small 

squares  in    casements,   called  carreaux,   vul- 
garly '  quarrels.' 
'A  she-house,'  a  house  where  the  wife  rules. 
'Sheriff's  ball,'  an  execution. 
'Sheriff's  bracelets,'  hand-cuffs. 
'  Sheriff's  hotel,'  a  prison. 
'  Sheriff's  picture  frame,'  the  gallows. 


178  THE  FORTUNES  OF    IVOKDS. 

We  might  thus  go  on  for  pages  and  pages  of 
slang  and  idioms  more  or  less  witty,  more  or 
less  felicitous,  but  which  have  generally  died 
away  as  they  were  not  possessed  of  that  easy 
and  universal  intelligibility  which  is  the  first 
requisite  of  all  speech. 

It  is  a  good-fortune  of  the  English  language 
that  the  common  parlance,  of  the  educated 
classes  at  least,  differs  so  little  from  the  language 
of  literature.  Conversation  is  thereby  enabled 
to  make  itself  rich,  noble  and  refined  by  all  the 
polished  treasures  of  prose  and  verse,  without 
seeming  bookish  or  affected.  On  the  other 
hand  the  language  of  literature  is  kept  lively, 
vigorous  and  fresh  by  holding  itself  continually 
in  contact  with  and  enriching  itself  by  the  re- 
sources of  the  language  of  conversation. 

It  has  been  the  privilege  of  the  English  lan- 
guage to  be  the  instrument  to  express  the 
thoughts  of  some  of  the  greatest  men  that  ever 
lived,  of  writers  and  thinkers  who  looked  into 
the  mysteries  of  human  nature  as  deep  as  men 
ever  did.  Still  we  must  remember  it  is  not 
these  great  men  that  make  the  language.  They 
raise   the   standard   of   language,  they  give  it 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  179 

fixity,  shape  and  dignity  by  bringing  it  up  to  a 
level  with  their  thoughts  and  moulding  it  with 
the  might  of  their  genius.  But  the  substance, 
the  sinews  as  well  as  the  muscles,  of  language 
are  given  by  the  people.  Even  the  action  of 
the  greatest  genius  is  but  a  little  thing  in  com- 
parison with  that  of  the  people,  and  the  more 
education  increases  and  culture  spreads,  the 
smaller  becomes  the  influence  of  individuals 
severally,  the  greater  that  of  the  people  at  large. 
This  leads  us  up  to  consider  the  much-dis- 
cussed problem  of  what  is  to  be  done  in  order 
to  preserve  the  purity  of  our  language.  On  this 
subject  many  writers  and  teachers  entertained, 
many  still  entertain,  some  queer  ideas.  They 
seem  to  consider  as  against  the  purity  of  lan- 
guage all  the  words  and  idioms  which  are  newly 
introduced.  For  them  innovation  and  impu- 
rity are  synonymous.  Hence  an  extreme  care- 
fulness to  avoid  all  words  which,  however  pop- 
ular, clear  and  forcible  they  may  be,  even  some- 
times necessary,  have  not  yet  received  the  brand 
of  some  great  writer.  The  great  writers'  brand 
is  the  all-important  for  them,  and  the  older,  the 
better.     Which  views  do  not  seem  to  indicate, 


l8o  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

in  my  jud<^mcnt,  a  sound  apprehension  of  the 
nature  of  hmguage  and  the  laws  of  its  hfe.  If 
such  vievv^s  should  be  generally  adopted,  our 
written  language  would  soon  become  a  cold, 
academical,  artificial  thing,  a  skeleton  instead 
of  a  living  organism.  Fortunately  for  the  En- 
glish language,  they  never  had  great  authority 
or  power,  either  in  England  or  America.  But 
with  other  nations,  they  held  sway  very  long. 
Academies  were  instituted  which  took  upon 
themselves  to  legislate  in  matters  of  language, 
and  mark  the  limits  within  which  it  had  to  flow. 
But  usually  it  turned  out  that  language  was 
bid  to  sleep  in  a  Procrustean  bed.  It  would  be 
unjust  to  deny  the  good  services  of  the  French 
Academy  to  the  French  language  ;  but  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that,  while  the  language  has 
gained  in  finish  and  regularity,  it  has  lost  in 
strength  and  popular  spontaneousness  by  being 
submitted  to  the  cast-iron  rules  of  the  academy.* 
Far  greater  damage  was  wrought  to  the 
Italian  language  by  the  theories   of    pedantic 

*  It  is  said  that  Royer-Collard  threatened  to  resign  his 
mi  mbership  if  the  academy  ndmitied  into  its  vocabulary  the 
verb  baser. 


THE   FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  i8l 

//V^r^// and  academies.  They  went  so  far  with 
their  narrow-minded  exclusivism  that  at  length 
they  lost  all  authority  ;  now  they  are  simply 
laughed  at,  deprived  of  all  authority.  Even  in 
this  century  there  lived  pedants  (and  I  am 
afraid  they  are  not  all  dead  yet),  who  actually 
forbade  their  pupils  to  read  anything  which 
had  been  written  later  than  during  the  four- 
teenth century.  Some,  however,  were  so  liberal 
as  to  admit  also  the  writers  of  the  Cinquecento. 
All  the  rest  is  "  modern,"  which  in  their  minds 
means  "bad,"  "horrible."  It  is  difficult  to  im- 
agine a  sillier  way  of  looking  at  language  than 
that  adopted  by  these  powdered  academicians. 
With  the  same  reasonableness  one  might  pre- 
tend that  a  nation  should  be  ruled  by  the  laws 
of  five  hundred  years  ago. 

No,  it  is  not  by  the  pedantic  devices  of  the 
purists  that  we  can  preserve  a  language  vigor- 
ous and  pure.  Their  theories  resemble  too 
much  the  old  ways  of  fighting  epidemics  by 
means  of  fumigations,  cordons  sanitaires,  and 
similar  prohibitory  measures.  We  know  better 
now.  We  try  to  'prevent'  the  incoming  and 
spreading  of  such  diseases  by  keeping  from  them 


102  THE   FOKTUA'ES  OF    WORDS. 

the  means  to  feed  upon,  by  a  thorough  obedi- 
ence to  hygienic  rules.  Considering  that  lan- 
guage is  the  production  of  all  the  people,  the 
organ  of  their  minds,  the  mirror  of  their 
thoughts,  it  is  not  by  shutting  the  doors  of  our 
dictionaries  against  this  or  that  word  that  we 
can  hope  to  preserve  our  language  pure,  rich 
and  strong.  What  we  want  is  a  good,  thor- 
ough mental  hygiene.  We  want  everybody 
to  be  as  well  educated  as  possible,  we  want 
every  body  to  think  clearly,  strongly  and 
cleanly  in  order  to  use  and  understand  clear, 
strong,  sound  language.  If  all  the  peo- 
ple were  perfectly  educated,  their  minds 
would  be  quick  to  discover  new  things,  to  ap- 
prehend new  relations  of  things,  to  form  new 
thoughts,  to  discriminate  between  good  and 
bad,  refined  and  coarse ;  and  new  words  and 
idioms  and  felicitous  hits  of  expression  would 
flow  in  and  make  a  language  more  rich,  vari- 
ous, noble,  manly  than  the  world  has  yet 
seen.  Because,  we  must  remember,  to  make  a 
rich  and  powerful  language,  it  is  not  enough  to 
have  a  big  dictionary  where  thousands  of  words 
are  recorded.     It  is  necessary  that  these  words 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  183 

be  in  current  use  among  the  bulk  of  the  popu- 
lation, so  that  as  soon  as  a  speaker  utters  one 
of  them,  he  is  immediately  and  thoroughly  un- 
derstood by  the  whole  audience.  It  must  be 
like  the  striking  of  a  chord  on  a  musical  instru- 
ment :  as  soon  as  struck,  it  must  vibrate  in  the 
hearts  of  all  the  listeners.  We  may  say  of 
words  what  is  said  of  the  circulation  of  money. 
This  circulation  is  not  represented  by  the  bulk 
of  money  of  which  a  people  is  possessed,  be- 
cause it  might  lie  idle  in  banks  or  vaults  ;  but 
it  is  represented  by  the  bulk  of  money  multi- 
plied by  as  many  times  as  it  is  exchanged  in 
the  course  of  one  year.  Likewise,  the  real  lin- 
guistic wealth  of  a  people  does  not  depend  on 
the  number  of  words  of  which  its  dictionaries 
can  boast,  but  is  determined  by  the  actual  use 
of  the  mass  of  those  words. 

To  conclude  these  remarks,  should  a  young- 
man  ask  my  advice,  I  would  tell  him  to  remem- 
ber that  language  is  not  a  dead  thing,  but  a  liv- 
ing one,  and  all  the  minds  of  the  people  con- 
tribute to  its  life  and  growth.  Therefore,  do 
not  be  a  prig,  do  not  be  a  pedant.  Try  first  to 
get  a  good   education,  develop  your   imagina.- 


1 84  THE  FORTUNES  OE    WORDS. 

tion,  educate  your  taste,  strengthen  your  logi- 
cal power,  and  then  trust  to  your  judgment. 
Whenever  you  hear  a  new  word  or  idiom  which 
is  clear,  forcible,  apt  and  decent,  do  not  be 
afraid  :  use  it,  and  go  ahead. 


EIGHTEENTH  LETTER. 

Synonyms  :  When  and  by  Whom  They  ave  Useil — Reason  of 
their  Use — Inadequacy  of  Languajje— International  Syn- 
onyms. 


YOU  have  often  heard,  I  am  sure,  that,  to 
speak  exactly,  language  has  no  synonyms, 
that  is  to  say,  it  has  no  two  names  for  one  mtd 
tkersanre  thing.  This  is  true  in  the  main  when  we 
speak  of  languages  that  have  received  a  certain 
development  and  degree  of  perfection.  It  is, 
however,  not  true  of  the  languages  of  the  lowest 
tribes,  with  whom  language  is  in  such  an  un- 
steady condition  that  sometimes  the  whole  of 
the  vocabulary  is  changed  in  the  course  of  fifty 
years.  In  these  continual,  and  rather  irregular 
changes,  when  the  old  expressions  are  not  dead 
yet  entirely,  nor  have  the  new  ones  settled,  so 
to  say,  in  the  language,  there  must  needs  be 
several  words  which  are  used  to  denote  the 
same    thing.     In   the  same  way,  when  we  find 


1 86  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

even  in  such  a  highly  developed  language  as 
Sanskrit  some  one  hundred  names  for  the  horse 
and  fifty  for  the  dog,  it  is  natural  to  suppose 
that  some  of  those  names  were  used  indiffer- 
ently and  with  the  same  meaning. 

That  we  have  got  rid  of  such  cumbersome 
wealth,  and  that  we  have  assigned  to  each  word 
a  particular  meaning,  shows  the  greater  perfec- 
tion of  our  languages,  as  well  as  the  increased 
analytical  power  of  our  minds.  Still  we  speak 
of  synonyms,  meaning  thereby,  as  you  know, 
words  importing  almost  the  same  ideas,  not  ex- 
actly the  same,  but  ideas  so  nearly  related  that 
it  requires  sometimes  much  reflection  to  find 
out  the  difference.  What  are  these  synonyms  ? 
How  and  why  do  we  use  them?  Is  there  any 
necessity  for  them,  or  can  our  languages  get 
rid  of  them  as  they  did  of  the  true  synonyms 
such  as  are  to  be  found  in  primitive  languages? 

Such  questions  are  not  without  their  psycho- 
logical as  well  as  philological  importance.  Here 
we  can  surprise  our  minds  at  work,  and  see  how 
little  we  really  know,  and  that  little  how  imper- 
fectly !  Man,  it  is  said,  is  the  measure  of  the 
universe  ;  but    as  soon  as  we  step  out  of  the 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  187 

material  world,  our  processes  and  calcula- 
tions are  so  rude,  so  irregular,  so  deprived 
of  a  universally  recognized  value,  that  the 
roughest  ways  of  calculating  of  the  savages 
would  in  comparison  seem  perfection  itself. 
Still,  however  imperfect  the  proceedings  of  our 
mind,  they  are  far  superior  to  the  instrument 
by  which  it  gives  account  of  its  achievements. 
Those  who  confuse  language  with  mind  or 
thought,  have  only  to  look  intimately  into  their 
own  thoughts  and  try  to  clothe  them  with 
words,  in  order  to  see  how  shabbily  they  have 
to  dress  them,  and  how  inferior  language  is  to 
our  mind.  Ideas,  regal  personages,  stately  and 
fit  for  the  purple,  have  to  go  about  in  rags  like 
beggars,  nay,  sometimes  these  very  rags  fail 
them  and  they  have  to  borrow  of  one  another. 
When  I  say  a  word,  goodness.,  for  instance,  I 
have  in  my  mind  an  idea  which  is  not  entirely 
clear  to  myself ;  it  is  something  made  up  of  my 
personal  experience,  of  the  good  things  I  have 
seen,  the  good  deeds  I  have  witnessed  or  heard 
of,  the  good  people  I  have  met,  what  I  read, 
what  was  taught  to  me,  etc.  Even  as  I  may 
know    a   person    very    well    and    easily   distin- 


i«8  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

guisli  him  among  a  crowd,  still  I  would  be  pretty 
much  embarrassed  if  I  were  called  upon  to  de- 
scribe the  shape  of  his  mouth  and  nose,  the 
color  of  his  eyes,  his  height,  his  age  ;  so  this 
idea  of  '  goodness '  I  know  well  enough  to  dis- 
tinguish among  many  others,  but  it  would  be 
almost  impossible  for  me  to  give  a  clear  defini- 
tion of  it,  stating  all  its  elements  and  features. 
If  so  dim  and  indefinite  is  the  idea  that  I  my- 
self have  of  this  particular  thing,  what  is  the 
idea  that  I  call  up  in  your  mind  when  I  say  the 
word  "goodness"?  Certainly  one  similar  to 
my  own,  since  you  live  in  the  same  moral  envi- 
ronment where  I  live,  and  have  imbibed,  through 
teachings,  readings  and  experiences,  about 
the  same  ideas  as  myself.  If  you  had  lived  in 
another  milieu,  for  instance,  among  canni- 
bals, we  would  not  agree  so  well,  as  very  likely 
you  would  throw  into  the  idea  of  '  goodness' 
such  acts  as  that  of  eating  your  servants.  Such 
as  it  is,  however,  your  idea  of  goodness  does 
not  exactly  coincide  with  mine.  It  would  be  a 
miracle  if  it  should,  since  your  personal  experi- 
ences, your  reading,  your  acquaintances,  and  all 
those  conditions  of  life  from  which  we  form  our 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  i«9 

ideas,  have  not  been  exactly  like  mine.  So  that 
if  I  should,  in  a  very  awkward  way,  represent 
graphically  our  ideas  of  goodness,  they  would 
require  two  different  figures,  like  these,  for 
instance : 


In  the  same  way,  when  I  say  "  honest,"  "  hon- 
orable," "  upright,"  I  have  myself  a  somewhat 
vague  idea  of  what  I  mean.  I  can  give,  if 
called  upon  to  do  so,  some  characters  and  feat- 
ures of  such  ideas,  but  by  no  means  an  exact 
description.  My  description  would  be  as  far 
from  a  truly  philosophical  explanation  as  the 
description  of  a  region  by  an  uncultivated  trav- 
eller differs  from  the  map  of  a  geographer.  And 
I  do  not  think  that  I  do  you  wrong  if  I  say 
that  also  in  your  mind  the  ideas  called  forth  by 
such  words  as  "honest,"  "honorable,"  "up- 
right," are  somewhat  dim  and  ill-defined. 
And  also  in  this  case,  had  we  to  shape 
forth    our  own  separate  ideas  by  geometrical 


19°  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

figures,  we  may  be  sure  they  would  not  coin- 
cide. 

Another  observation  we  have  to  make.  If  I 
consider  the  ideas  of  "upright,"  "honest," 
"  honorable,"  and  try  to  analyze  all  the  ele- 
ments of  which  each  of  them,  in  my  mind,  is 
composed,  I  see  that  some  elements  are  com- 
mon to  all  of  them,  that  these  ideas  are  not  en- 
tirely distinct  from  one  another,  that  not  only 
the  regions  they  occupy  in  the  ideal  world  are 
dimly  known,  but  these  several  regions  en- 
croach upon  and  intersect  each  other ;  so  that 
had  I  to  represent  them  with  graphic  signs,  these 
signs  would  not  be  apart  from  one  another,  but 
would  be  grouped  and  interwoven  in  many 
ways  ;  thus,  for  instance  : 


Indeed  a  graphic  representation  of  our  idea- 
logic  world  would  not  be  a  systematic  concate- 
nation of  circles  with  one  or  several  centres,  but 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  191 

rather  a  complicated   texture   of  figures  of  all 
kinds. 

Words  which  convey  ideas  very  closely  re- 
lated, that  is  to  say  ideas  which  in  the  ideal 
regions  have  some  part  of  the  space  in  common, 
are  called  synonyms.  "  Ire,"  "  anger,"  "  wrath," 
are  synonyms  because  the  ideas  which  they 
convey  are  not  entirely  separated  from  one  an- 
another ;  because  their  graphical  representa- 
tions would  necessarily  overlap  each  other. 


Synonyms  then  exist  because  of  the  incom- 
plete distinction  of  our  ideas.  Until  we  shall 
have  divided  and  classified  all  our  intellectual 
possessions  as  precisely  as  a  well  catalogued 
library  or  as  a  honey-comb,  we  shall  need  syno- 
nyms, that  is  to  say,  we  shall  need  synonyms 
as  long  as  we  shall  speak,  because  no  sooner 
have  we  brought  some  order  and  classification 
into  our  ideas  than  new  ones  arise,  by  which 
the  former  have  to  be  changed  or  displaced  or 


192  THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

given  up.  The  incomplete  distinction  and  the 
indefiniteness  of  our  ideas  explain  the  existence 
of  synonymical  expressions.  But  why  do  we 
use  them  together  ?     Why  do  I  say  that  "  Mr. 

C is  a  thoroughly  reliable,  honest,  upright 

man  ?  " 

The  reason  of  this  fact  must  also  be  sought 
outside  the  field  of  language.  When  I  want  to 
convey  one  of  these  abstract  ideas,  I  feel  that 
I  have  myself  but  a  dim  conception  of  it,  and 
that  it  is  but  imperfectly  set  forth  by  the 
first  word  I  use.  I  feel,  besides,  that  in  your 
mind  there  must  also  be  about  the  same  inde- 
cision as  to  the  idea  contained  in  my  word. 
Therefore  I  throw  out,  almost  by  instinct,  some 
cognate  words,  so  as  to  be  sure  to  cover 
all  the  ground  of  the  idea  which  I  especially 
want  to  convey.  Of  course,  my  choice  of  syn- 
onymical expressions  will  be  good  in  proportion 
with  my  knowledge  of  the  language,  and  the 
clearness  and  strength  of  my  thinking.  If  I  am 
ignorant  of  the  language  and  my  thinking  is 
loose  and  poor,  my  synonyms  are  very  likely  to 
turn  out  a  useless  heap  of  words,  a  cumbersome 
verbiage  rather  than  to  add  light  to  m}'  speech. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  I93 

In  analyzing  the  meanings  of  synonyms,  does 
etymology  and  knowledge  of  roots  afford  us 
any  light  ?  Up  to  a  certain  point  it  does. 
Of  course,  use  modifies  a  great  deal  the 
meanings  of  words,  especially  of  the  ab- 
stract ones,  but  at  the  bottom  of  such  varia- 
tions we  can  always  find  a  primitive  meaning 
which  can  explain  all  the  subsequent  ones,  and 
the  key  to  this  meaning  we  find,  as  a  rule,  in 
etymology.  Coleridge  said  a  very  apt  thing 
when  he  advised  us,  in  order  to  get  the  full 
sense  of  a  word,  to  present  first  to  our  minds 
the  visual  image  that  forms  its  primary  mean- 
ing. And,  as  I  said,  this  primary  meaning  is 
given  us  by  etymology. 

You  may  also  observe  that  we  use  synonyms 
mostly  when  we  want  to  convey  abstract  ideas, 
that  is  when  our  thought  turns  upon  subjects 
where  ideas  are  most  difficult  to  be  clearly  con- 
ceived and  neatly  separated.  We  do  not  use 
synonyms  when  we  speak  of  stones,  animals, 
coins  and  utensils.  In  the  English  language, 
where  the  most  elementary  ideas  are  generally 
expressed  by  Anglo-Saxon  words,  while  the 
most    complex   ideas,  pertaining   to   literature, 


194  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

philosophy  and  science,  are  expressed  by 
words  taken  from  the  Latin  vocabulary,  we 
must  naturally  expect  to  find  the  greatest 
quantity  of  synonyms  among  words  of  Latin 
origin.  In  fact,  in  the  treatise  of  synonyms 
edited  by  Whately,  where  more  than  450  words 
are  examined,  scarcely  90  are  of  Anglo-Saxon 
origin. 

A  peasant  generally  does  not  use  synonyms. 
He  may  use  literary  or  scientific  words  mal 
hpropos,  but  he  does  not  use  synonyms  for  the 
simple  reason  that  his  uncultivated  mind  does 
not  perceive,  between  one  and  another  idea,  the 
subtle  lines  and  shades  which  are  plainly  visi- 
ble to  an  educated  mind.  Hence  he  does  not 
feel  the  necessity  of  selecting  among  his  vocab- 
ulary in  order  to  express  them.  Just  as  a  car- 
penter or  a  stone-cutter  does  not  feel  the  neces- 
sity of  those  fine,  well-studied  touches  which 
form  the  despair  of  the  great  sculptor — the  de- 
spair and  at  the  same  time  the  glory.  Because 
these  diflficult  repeated  attempts  to  clothe  an 
idea  with  the  most  perfect  dress,  whether  it  t)e 
of  marble,  colors  or  words,  afford  some  of  the 
greatest  joys  that  our  minds  are  capable  of.    It 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  195 

is  also  to  be  noticed  that,  through  one  of  those 
intricate  processes  which  form  the  inscrutable 
wonders  of  our  psychic  life,  while  we  find  an 
ineffable  intellectual  pleasure  in  choosing  our 
words  and  polishing  the  expression  of  our 
thoughts,  intensity  of  emotion  and  strength  of 
feeling  bring  out  in  full  display  the  resources  of 
our  dictionary.  As  Dr.  Abel  well  remarks, 
"Devotional  feeling  evokes  the  treasures  of  the 
soul  and  of  the  language.  Discussion  and  epis- 
tolary correspondence  have  a  like  tendency, 
and  the  charm  of  letter-writing  in  no  small  de- 
gree arises  from  the  employment  of  careful  and 
polished  phraseology  beyond  the  wants  and 
usages  of  our  intercourse." 

Another  fact  we  must  consider  in  connection 
with  synonyms,  to  which  it  is  not  usual  to 
pay  much  attention.  Besides  the  synonyms  of 
which  we  have  just  been  speaking,  there  are 
also  some  that  I  would  call  **  international 
synonyms." 

Let  me  explain.  If  you  look  at  the  languages 
now  spoken  by  the  civilized  nations  of  Europe^ 
you  will  see  that  they  have  many  terms  in  com- 
mon, having  changed  them  just  enough  to  give 


196  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

them  a  native  look.  This  is  especially  the  case 
.  for  English  and  German  on  one  side,  English 
and  French,  Italian,  and  the  other  Neo-Latin 
languages,  on  the  other.  We  find,  for  instance, 
"honest"  in  English,  "honnete"  in  French, 
"  onesto  "  in  Italian;  "amiable"  in  English, 
"  aimable  "  in  French,  "  amabile  "  in  Italian  ; 
"  tempest  "  in  English,  "  tempete  "  in  French, 
"  tempesta "  in  Italian;  "audience"  in  Eng- 
lish, "  audience  "  in  French,  "  udienza  "  in  Ital- 
ian, etc.  We  should  be  greatly  mistaken,  if  we 
were  to  believe  that  such  words  are  true  syno- 
nyms. Although  they  are  mere  national  dis- 
guisements,  or  idiosyncratic  transformations  of 
the  same  Latin  word,  they  have  assumed  in  the 
several  languages  different  shades  of  meaning, 
which  sometimes  mislead  us  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  foreign  idioms. 

Again,  when  you  want  to  translate  the  Eng- 
lish word  "  friend  "  into  a  foreign  language,  if 
you  turn  to  your  dictionary,  you  will  find  be- 
side "friend  "  the  French  "ami,"  the  German 
"  freund,"  the  Italian  "  amico."  It  would  seem 
that  these  four  words  correspond  exactly  to 
each  other  and  are  absolutely  equivalent.     In 


THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS.  197 

fact,  however,  they  are  not.  "  Ami,"  for  in- 
stance, is  far  from  being  the  exact  correspond- 
ent of  "  freund."  A  Frenchman,  addressing  a 
man  with  whom  he  has  but  the  sh'ghtest 
acquaintance,  or  caressing  a  boy  whom  he  has 
never  seen  before,  calls  them  "  mon  ami."  In- 
deed, it  is  not  unusual  in  Paris  to  hear  this  epi- 
thet bestowed  on  a  dog.  The  German,  on  the 
contrary,  addressing  a  person,  uses  the  word 
"freund"  very  seldom,  and  that  only  when 
speaking  to  a  very  dear  friend  and  on  particu- 
lar occasions.  The  English  "  friend  "  may  be 
said  to  waver  between  "  ami  "  and  "  freund  "  ; 
not  so  prodigally  lavished  as  the  French,  not  so 
earnest  and  binding  as  the  German  word.  The 
Italians  use  their  "  amico  "  almost  in  exact  cor- 
respondence with  the  English  "friend." 

Likewise,  many  other  words  which  in  our 
dictionaries  are  given  as  the  true  translation  of 
corresponding  foreign  words,  in  fact  translate 
these  only  more  or  less  approximately. 

Meanwhile  it  is  evident  that,  if  we  select  a 
group  of  such  cognate  words  and  analyze 
carefully  the  various  meanings  in  which  they 
arc  commonly    used  by    oifferent  peoples,  we 


198  THE  FOR  TUXES  OF    WORDS. 

have  therein  a  means  to  find  out  what  the 
ideas  of  these  peoples  are  on  particular  sub- 
jects, and  to  infer  thence  certain  national 
characteristics  and  habits.  This  leads  us  to 
say  a  few  words  about  a  new  branch  of  science 
which  makes  its  object  to  study  the  character- 
istics, the  nature,  the  soul  of  each  several  na- 
tion. Every  people  presents  certain  mental 
traits  peculiar  to  itself,  and  it  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  studies  to  bring  forth  in  its 
salient  lines  the  image  of  its  mind.  The 
Germans  call  this  science  "  Volkerpsychologie  "; 
we  might  call  it,  if  you  do  not  object,  folk- 
psychology. 


NINETEENTH    LETTER. 

Language  and  Folkpsychology — Philosophy  of  Language — 
Comparative  Studies — The  Idea  of  "  Love  "  in  the  Latin 
and  in  the  English  Languages. 


IF  we  desire  to  penetrate  into  the  '  soul '  of  a 
people,  none  of  the  products  of  its  activity- 
should  be  left  aside  in  our  study.  Its  art,  its 
laws,  its  religion,  and  all  the  facts  in  which 
some  of  its  ideas  are  imbedded,  have  a  right  to 
claim  our  attention.  It  is  evident  that  lan- 
guage is  entitled  to  a  large  place  in  such  studies. 
Although  not  perfect,  it  is  yet  the  best  instru- 
ment that  we  have  for  the  representation  of  our 
ideas.  Many  an  idea  is  formed  in  our  minds 
which  dies  unuttered  and,  so  to  say,  unborn. 
But  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  those  ideas 
which  arc  born  at  all,  are  consigned  to  language 
rather  than  to  any  other  mode  of  expression, 
like  painting,  sculpture  or  music.  Language, 
then,  is  still  the  most  important  element  to 
study  in   order  to   draw,  if  I   may  say  so,  the 


200  77//:   FORTUA'ES   OF    WORDS. 

psycliic  map  of  a  nation.  "  Every  race,"  Marsh 
says,  "has  its  organic  growth  which  impresses 
its  own  pecuh'ar  form  on  the  rehgious  ideas  and 
the  philosophical  opinions  of  the  people,  on 
their  political  constitution,  their  legislation, 
their  customs,  and  the  expression  of  all  these 
individualities  is  found  in  the  speech.  In  this 
are  embalmed  that  to  which  they  have  aspired, 
that  to  which  they  have  attained.  There  we 
find  the  record  of  their  thought,  its  compre- 
hension, wealth  and  depth,  the  life  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  limits  of  their  culture,  their  appetencies 
and  their  antipathies,  whatsoever  has  germi- 
nated, fructified,  ripened  and  passed  away 
among  them  ;  yes,  even  their  shortcomings  and 
their  trespasses." 

In  nowise  can  we  better  estimate  the  mental 
development  of  a  people  than  by  looking  at 
its  dictionary.  As  "  notions  which  are  the  com- 
mon and  recognized  property  of  whole  nations 
or  important  national  sections,  come  to  be  ex- 
pressed by  means  of  single  words  or  standing 
phrases  "  it  is  evident  that  the  stock  of  words 
in  current  use  is  a  good  measure  of  the  intel- 
lectual   horizon    of    a   people.     Without    ever 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  20 1 

having  heard  a  word  about  Germans  or  Apaches, 
it  is  enough  to  look  at  their  dictionaries  to  un- 
derstand immediately  the  immense  gulf  that 
separates  these  two  civilizations.  It  is  enough 
to  see  how  poor  the  English  dictionary  is  in 
truly  English  words  pertaining  to  music,  to 
understand  that  the  English  are  not  a  musical 
nation.  On  the  other  hand,  one  look  at  their 
unparalleled  collection  of  words  relating  to 
commerce,  church,  or  legislation,  will  show 
some  of  the  most  important  directions  in 
which  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind  has  developed. 
Thus  even  the  absence  of  certain  words  can 
testify  to  certain  traits  of  the  national  mind. 

From  these  comparisons  at  large  between  the 
dictionaries  of  two  or  more  peoples,  we  can 
narrow  our  researches  to  compare  the  words 
concerning  one  particular  branch  of  ideas  or 
feelings.  We  may  assume  as  self-evident  that 
"  a  nation  to  have  many  words  for  a  concept, 
must  have  been  much  at  work  upon  it,  must 
have  developed  and  varied  it  and  nicely  shaded 
it  off.  .  .  .  When  defining  significations 
with  exactness,  the  dictionary  assumes  the 
dignity  of   a  psychological  thesaurus,  and  be- 


202  THE  FOR  TUXES   OF    JVOKDS. 

comes  a  vivid   and  boldly  delineated  sketch  of 
a  national  type." 

Dr.  Abel,  from  whom  I  have  just  quoted,  has 
given  us  a  very  interesting  essay  of  compara- 
tive research  concerning  the  idea  of  "love" 
with  several  nations,  the  most  important  for 
our  purpose  being  the  Romans  and  the  English. 

In  Latin  we  find  mainly  four  words  express- 
ing the  idea  of  love:  '  diligere,' '  amor ' ;  'cari- 
tas,*  *  pietas.'  The  first  two  words  expressed  a 
spontaneous  affection  ;  the  other  two  a  dutiful 
affection,  an  affection  given  because  of  duty. 
"  To  the  Romans  spontaneous  inclination  either 
rested  upon  a  feeling  in  which  intelligent  recog- 
nition of  personal  worth  had  gradually  ripened 
into  a  warmer  appreciation  of  the  goodness  and 
amiability  of  the  individual  beloved  ;  or  it  was 
pure  feeling  which,  welling  up  from  the  secret 
depths  of  the  soul,  and  defying  the  restraints 
of  ordinary  reflection,  might  rapidly  run 
through  all  the  various  intervening  stages  be- 
tween mere  gratification  of  the  finer  suscepti- 
bilities and  the  mighty  flow  of  an  overpowering 
passion.  The  former  more  judicious  and  dis- 
cerning kind  of  spontaneous  love  the  Romans 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  203 

denoted  by 'diligere ' ;  the  latter  more  impul- 
sive one  by  'amare.' 

"  In  dutiful  love  also  two  stages  were  ac- 
knowledged— '  caritas  '  and  '  pietas.'  '  Caritas  ' 
is  the  moral  sanction  bestowed  upon  the  bonds 
of  nature  that  links  us  to  parents,  brothers,  sis- 
ters and  tried  friends — the  loving  allegiance  due 
to  those  associated  with  us  as  mates  and  help- 
ful companions  in  our  earthly  career.  '  Pietas  ' 
looks  in  the  same  direction,  but  from  a  higher 
point  of  view.  Lending  to  the  ethic  glow  of 
loyal  attachment  the  more  sublime  sanctity  of 
religion  and  faith,  it  regards  fidelity  to  relations 
and  allies,  not  as  a  mere  moral  and  intersocial 
duty,  but  as  an  obligation  to  the  gods  them- 
selves. The  sphere  of  'pietas'  extends  not 
quite  so  far  down,  but  reaches  higher  up  than 
that  of  'caritas.'  " 

*  Caritas  '  and  '  pietas,'  expressing  a  feeling 
which  is  born  with  us  and  exists  even  if  we  do 
not  display  it,  have  no  corresponding  verb.  The 
other  feeling  which  implies  an  active  energy  of 
our  soul,  has  given  birth  to  two  verbs,  '  diligere  ' 
and  *  amare.' 

The    Romans  had  also   a  more  general  and 


204  THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

less  definite  word,  'affectus.'  It  was  used  in 
polite  society  as  a  less  decided  and  more  con- 
ventional term  for  '  love,'  almost  in  the  same 
way  as  we  use  the  word  '  attachment.' 

As  to  the  study  of  the  same  idea  as  it  is  rep- 
resented in  the  English  language,  I  beg  to 
quote  Dr.  Abel's  observations  in  full,  also  to  give 
a  good  demonstration  of  how  the  study  of  words 
can  be  made  a  study  of  things,  and  philology 
can  be  associated  with  philosophy  and  psy- 
chology : 

"The  Englishman's  love  is  always  a  free  gift 
depending  more  upon  the  will  of  the  giver  than 
upon  social  relations  or  kinship.  Its  various 
kinds  differ  from  each  other,  not  according  to 
the  relative  condition  of  the  parties  concerned, 
but  according  to  the  warmth  and  coloring  in- 
fused by  personal  feeling.  When  the  national 
mind  is  so  disposed,  it  is  only  natural  that  al- 
most every  one  of  the  English  words  for  '  love  ' 
should  admit  of  being  applied  at  will,  independ- 
ently of  all  other  personal  relations. 

"The  most  general  designation  is  '  love.'  Orig- 
inally the  passion  which  seeks  to  enjoy  the 
presence   and   sympathy  of   the  beloved,    has 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  205 

^nadually  become  to  be  far  more  than  this. 
With  the  desire  for  sweet  communion  it  unites 
a  more  or  less  prominent  spiritual  trait,  ennobling 
the  passion  and  enlisting  it  into  the  unselfish 
service  of  the  ideal.  It  thus  becomes  a  real  en- 
thusiasm for  the  beautiful  and  the  good,  which 
for  the  time  being  is  seen  embodied  in  the  be- 
loved object,  and  which  by  most  men  is  acknowl- 
edged only  in  this  short  span  of  the  spring-time 
of  the  soul.  It  culminates  in  a  transient  self- 
exaltation  of  his  own  nature,  during  which  man 
is  apt  to  fancy  he  has  found  a  charm  that  shall 
give  him  a  new  joy  in  existence,  impart  a  fresh 
purity  of  will,  and  bestow  increased  fitness  for 
the  battle  of  life.  If  love  continues  after  its  en- 
chantment is  gone,  it  ripens  into  'affection.' 
Affection  is  love  tried  and  purified  by  the  fire 
of  intellect.  It  comes  on  to  the  scene  when, 
the  veil  of  phantasy  being  lifted,  the  beloved 
object  is  seen  in  its  true  nature,  and  discovered, 
if  not  without  failings,  still  worthy  of  the  warm- 
est appreciation.  Affection  comes  slowly  but 
abides ;  giving  more  than  it  takes  ;  and  as  a 
touch  of  tender  gratitude  for  a  thousand  favors 
received,  a  thousand   remembrances   treasured 


2o6  THE  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS. 

up,  and  unfading  happiness  accorded.  Accord- 
ing to  English  notions,  an  affection  through 
whose  limpid  depths  the  gold  of  the  old  love  is 
plainly  visible  should  be  the  fulfillment  of  mar- 
riage. 

"  Not  only  to  woman  and  the  beloved,  how- 
ever, are  both  words  applicable.  As  regards 
'  affection,'  the  mingled  deliberation  and  feeling 
latent  in  it  certainly  restricts  the  word  to 
individuals  whose  close  acquaintance  has  en- 
gendered mutual  esteem  ;  but  relations  of  this 
nature  are  not  necessarily  confined  to  women. 
They  may,  on  the  contrary,  extend  to  relatives 
and  friends  of  whom  we  have  never  been  enam- 
oured, but  towards  whom,  from  long  and  inti- 
mate intercourse,  we  are  drawn  by  a  feeling  akin 
to  love  tested  and  tried.  Parents  and  children, 
good  relatives  and  dear  friends,  feel  afTection 
for  one  another.  Love  likewise  expands  in 
meaning.  It  may  either  sink  to  an  exaggerated 
fondness  for  trifles,  or  else  rise  to  a  devout  ap- 
preciation of  the  great  spiritual  entities  in  which 
we  behold  our  highest  possessions.  It  is  said 
of  a  man's  sentiment  for  his  country,  for  hu- 
manity, science,  religion,  and   in  its    sublimest 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  207 

application,  for  God.  In  order  to  be  able  to 
speak  of  his  love  in  this  sense,  man  by  humil- 
ity, piety  and  enthusiasm,  must  consecrate  him- 
self to  the  higher  powers,  whom  he  may  serve 
through  his  righteous  will,  though  he  can  not 
exalt  them  by  his  feeble  acts.  The  confidence 
springing  from  this  piety  encourages  man  to 
speak  of  the  love  of  God  to  himself. 

"  For  a  particular  variety  of  the  love  of  man 
there  is  a  special  word,  '  charity.'  It  is  love 
moderated  to  affection,  but  extended  to  all  our 
brethren  alike.  When,  by  all  sorts  of  experi- 
ences and  the  gradual  growth  of  prudence  and 
worldly  wisdom,  youthful  enthusiasm  begins  to 
flag,  its  place  should  be  filled  by  the  more  tem- 
perate and  imperishable  charity.  Charity  con- 
tends that  although  all  men  around  us,  and  not 
the  least  we  ourselves,  are  erring  creatures,  we 
are  bound  to  love  our  neighbour  for  God's  sake. 
Charity  proclaims  that  since  God  has  permitted 
man  to  sin,  it  behooves  man  to  embrace  with 
forbearing  love  those  that  yield  to  temptation. 
Recognizing  many  excellent  qualities  in  him, 
'  affection '  loves  and  cherishes  some  sympa- 
^      thetic  individual ;  while  '  charity,' thinkingless 


2o8  THE  FOKTUiVES  OF    WORDS. 

of  human  foibles  than  of  the  striving  energy  for 
good  instinct  in  man,  loves  all  men  alike.  The 
one  emanates  from  the  soul's  longings  to  ac- 
knowledge the  good,  the  other  from  the  duty 
of  forgiving  the  bad.  The  one  is  glad,  the 
other  sad  ;  the  one  of  this  world,  the  other  of  a 
better. 

"  As  charity  indicates  a  specific  kind  of  '  love  ' 
extended  to  all  men,  so  '  fondness  '  represents  a 
peculiar  shade  of  that  meaning  of  the  term 
which  applies  to  individuals.  'Fondness'  im- 
plies a  deep  devotion  without  including  either 
the  staunch  and  rational  esteem  of  '  affection  * 
or  the  passionate  fire  of  '  love.'  It  is  a  love  for 
the  sake  of  the  dear  habit  of  loving,  ready  to 
dispense  with  any  particular  worth  in  the  be- 
loved, and,  if  it  must  be,  even  with  return.  It 
is  a  sort  of  instinctive  and  uncontrollable  cling- 
ing that  cannot  free  itself  from  the  object  it  has 
chosen  to  adore,  that  forgives  all,  denies  noth- 
ing, and  caresses,  even  when  blame  or  coldness 
is  deserved.  Though  it  may  also  extend  to 
friends,  in  its  excessive  tenderness  the  term  de- 
scribes principally  relations  between  lovers,  or 
between  parents  and  children.     It  often  origin- 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  209 

ates  in  a  warm  heart,  inert  judgment,  and  not 
very  active  self-esteem  ;  and  although  it  may 
become  foolish,  never  loses  the  deep  glow  of 
true  and  heartfelt  affection.  To  the  genuine, 
ness  of  its  sympathy  the  word  is  indebted  for 
its  prerogative  in  remaining  applicable  in  cases 
of  a  nobler  nature.  Where  by  the  context  every 
suspicion  of  fondling  is  shut  out,  '  fondness  ' 
may  be  used  for  a  satisfied  and  restful  attach- 
ment, less  active  than  affection,  less  exacting 
than  love,  but  just  as  certain  and  reliable  as 
both.  A  tinge  of  forbearing  and  voluntary 
fondness  should  be  given  to  every  description 
of  love. 

"  '  Passion  '  often  denotes  emphatically  that 
passion  which  occurs  most  frequently — love. 

"  Going  back  the  whole  way  we  have  come, 
and  entering  a  province  where  there  is  yet  no 
question  of  love,  we  are  met  by  '  liking  '  and  *  at- 
tachment.' Liking  is  a  vague  interest  spring- 
ing from  the  feelings,  which  may,  or  may  not, 
deepen  to  real  attraction.  Between  young 
people  of  different  sex  it  certainly  has  a  re- 
markable tendency  to  pass  through  the  whole 
morphological    series,  of   which  it    is   the   first 


2IO  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

stage.  Hence  its  uses  are  manifold.  Thougli 
she  may  be  far  enough  gone  to  confess  her  love 
to  herself,  a  modest  maiden  still  speaks  of  '  lik- 
ing ' ;  while  with  just  as  good  a  right  a  lieuten- 
ant, referring  to  a  comrade  whom  he  has  seen 
to-day  and  may  forget  to-morrow,  exclaims,  '  I 
like  the  fellow,  egad  !'  Attachment  lies  between 
liking  and  love.  It  arises  from  an  attraction  of 
the  intellect  or  of  the  feelings,  the  latter  being 
mostly  the  more  powerful  agency  of  the  two. 
When  mutually  experienced  by  man  and  wo- 
man, it  has  a  tendency  to  imperceptibly  draw 
them  towards  the  Niagara  of  love.  It  frequently 
marks  a  stage  in  which  a  seeming  surface  liking 
is  unconsciously  nourished  by  passion  secretly 
welling  up  from  the  hidden  depth  of  the  soul. 
When  occurring  between  persons  of  the  same 
sex,  the  feeling  is  almost  entirely  restricted  to 
individuals  in  the  same  social  position,  seldom 
extending  to  subordinates.  Attachment,  as  a 
rule,  links  us  to  equals  or  supposed  equals. 
Liking  is  so  vague  and  love  so  impetuous,  that 
both  may  be  felt  for  subordinates  as  well  as  for 
equals  or  superiors  ;  affection  so  zealously  takes 
care  of  its  object  that,  in  a  sense,  it  aspires  to 


THE  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS.  211 

superiority  for  the  sake  of  protection  ;  attach- 
ment, on  the  other  hand,  would  be  a  thoughtful 
devotion — devotion  because  of  the  affection 
manifestly  present,  and  thoughtful  because 
self-possession  is  sufficiently  preserved  to  pre- 
vent the  overpowering  effect.  Conscious  re- 
serve is  a  counterweight  to  affection,  and,  assert- 
ing itself  more  strongly  towards  subordinates 
than  equals,  makes  the  word  inapplicable  to  the 
former." 

The  same  kind  of  investigation  can  be  pur- 
sued with  words  related  to  other  orders  of 
ideas :  God,  justice,  law,  pe^ialty,  crime,  valor, 
cowardice,  etc.  It  is  clear  that  in  this  way  we 
can  draw  sketches  of  the  nature  of  a  people 
that  cannot  fail  to  be  interesting  and  to  point 
out  characteristics  which  otherwise  might  be 
overlooked.  Only  we  must  be  careful  to  see 
that  our  investigation  is  complete  on  either 
side,  and  that  the  facts  are  looked  at  in  their 
true  light,  lest  we  might  hasten  to  false  conclu- 
sions. Nothing  is  more  common  than  to  hear 
or  come  across  in  books  some  summary  state- 
ments concerning  the  character  of  a  people  as 
conceived  from  superficial  examination  of  one 


212  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

or  two  words.  Landor  for  instance  ("  Imaginary- 
Conversations")  discovers  in  the  Italians  a  per- 
version of  moral  sense,  because  they  call  a 
bracelet  or  an  ear-ring  a  '  joy,'  gioia.  But  he 
does  not  notice  that  the  English  do  the  same 
thing,  as  ' jewel' is  merely  the  transformation 
of  Italian  gioicllo,  '  a  little  joy.'  This  docs  not 
imply  any  perversion  whatever  ;  it  is  a  natural 
transition  from  the  thing  itself  to  the  pleasure 
it  gives  us  to  look  at  it ;  it  is  an  illustration  of 
the  well-known  line,  "  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy 
forever."  Trench  and  all  those  who  claim 
that  language  was  given  to  men  all  ready-made 
and  perfect,  discover  in  the  old  meanings  of  our 
w^ords  traces  of  a  moral  purity  superior  to  that 
of  our  days.  But  this  is  against  all  facts ;  on 
the  whole,  morals  have  progressed  just  as  every- 
thing else,  and  the  history  of  language  shows 
in  our  words  traces  of  lower  and  coarser  mean- 
ings. Even  Marsh,  generally  so  wary  and  cau- 
tious, makes  a  considerable  slip  on  this  point. 
Having  observed  that  the  Latin  idea  of  the 
future  is  conveyed  by  one  word  alone  {ainabo, 
I  shall  love),  while  the  languages  derived  from 
Latin  have  a  future  formed   with  an  auxiliary 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  213 

{^xQnz\\  j'  aiinerai  is  J 'aimer-ai,  tu  aiuier-as,  etc.; 
see  "  Philosophy  of  Words,"  p.  1 54  f.),  he  tries 
to  give  a  reason  for  this  different  system.  In 
the  Middle  Ages,  he  says,  during  which  the  Neo- 
Latin  languages  were  formed,  society  was  all 
unsettled  ;  there  was  no  security,  no  confident 
trusting  in  the  morrow,  in  the  time  to  come. 
Therefore  the  idea  of  future  was  more  of  a  dark 
cloud  to  them  than  a  clear  conception.  Hence 
practically  they  needed  no  future  tense  ;  every- 
thing was  referred  to  the  present ;  and  when  it 
was  really  necessary  to  speak  of  a  time  that 
was  not  yet,  the  present  of  the  auxiliary  was 
made  to  do  the  service  of  the  future.  '  I  have  to 
love,'  not  amabo.  This  is  all  very  fine  ;  but 
there  is  an  objection.  Now  glottology  has 
shown  that  the  Latin  amabo,  which  looks  like 
a  simple  word,  is  really  a  compound,  made  up 
of  the  stem  of  the  verb  aniare,  and  the  root  ba, 
which  means  to  be :  "I  am  to  love."  So  the 
explanation  given  by  Marsh,  which  at  first 
seems  so  satisfactory,  turns  out  to  be  a  castle 
in  the  air. 

Others  have  tried  to  infer  the  whole  nature  of 
peoples  from    the  words  they   commonly   use 


214  THE  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS. 

in  meeting  friends  or  acquaintances,  as  "  How 
do  you  do  ?  "  or  "  comment  vous  portez-vous  ?  " 
etc.  It  is  superfluous  to  add  that  such  infer- 
ences, whatever  they  may  be,  are  entirely 
groundless.  No  large  generalization  can  be 
legitimately  reached  without  a  great  number  of 
facts  being  studied.  These  acrobatic  induc- 
tions from  one  word  to  an  ethnographic  trait 
always  remind  me  of  the  man  who  was  busy 
trying  to  solve  a  problem  in  which,  the 
length  of  the  ship  being  given,  the  age  of  the 
captain  was  to  be  found.  The  application  of 
linguistics  to  the  study  of  national  character- 
tics  is  yet  a  very  young  branch  of  the  science. 
Its  importance  will  be  appreciated  when  the 
facts  at  its  disposal  are  more  numerous ;  one 
reason  more  for  it  to  be  wary  and  slow  in  its 
inductions. 


TWENTIETH  LETTER. 

CONCLUSION. 


NOW  before  taking  my  leave  of  you,  my 
fair  and  sympathizing  listener,  let  me 
add  a  few  concluding  words.  Did  I  tire  you  ?  I 
hope  not;  you  told  me  I  did  not,  and  I  believe 
you.  Our  friendship  is  so  sincere,  and  you  are 
so  frank  that  you  would  always  tell  me  your 
mind  unhesitatingly.  At  all  events,  if  ever  I 
did  tire  you,  prithee  forgive  me ;  as  Manzoni 
says  at  the  end  of  his  great  novel :  "  I  did  not 
do  it  intentionally."  At  the  beginning  we  saw 
how  words  are  made  ;  how  from  an  ancient  root 
countless  words  are  derived,  which  assume  the 
most  various  shapes  with  the  most  various 
meanings  ;  how  the  bulk  of  our  daily  speech,  in 
fact  of  the  speeches  of  the  most  civilized 
peoples,  can  be  traced  back  to  a  few  hundred 
roots    from    which    they    have    grown     forth. 


«l6  THE  FORTUNES  OF   WORDS. 

Did  I  teach  anybody  to  make  etymolo- 
gies? I  hope  not,  indeed!  Rather  I  in- 
tended to  teach  not  to  make  etymologies. 
Etymology  nowadays,  especially  in  the  Indo- 
European  family,  has  been  so  well  studied 
that  no  corner  of  the  field  has  been  left  un- 
touched. Therefore,  to  attempt  to  introduce 
an  etymology  without  studying  the  results  as- 
certained by  long  and  learned  research,  without 
consulting  the  standard  books  on  the  subject, 
is  just  like  talking  of  stars  and  nebulae  without 
having  read  one  single  book  on  astronomy. 

In  the  second  place  we  saw,  through  various 
instances,  that  words  not  only  change  their 
shapes,  but  also  their  meanings.  Very  often  we 
find  a  word  conveying  a  meaning  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  its  primitive  one.  There  is,  how- 
ever, no  saltiis,  no  break  :  we  always  find,  by 
historical  investigation,  that  the  first  mean- 
ing is  linked  to  the  latest  one  by  a  continuous 
chain,  and  underlying  both  is  one  common 
meaning  which  contains  them  in  embryo. 

The  history  of  such  modifications  of  mean- 
ings,  we  saw,  can  be  made  to  throw  light  upon 
certain  phases  in  the  life  of  peoples  ;  successive 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  217 

improvements  in  human  dwellings  and  tools,  in 
the  perception  of  colors  and  the  formation  of 
numbers.  Religious,  political  and  social  revo- 
lutions, as  well  as  mechanical  inventions,  are 
testified  to  by  the  evolution  of  language.  In 
fact  a  complete  history  of  our  words  would 
almost  be  a  history  of  our  civilization. 

Lastly  we  have  studied  the  relation  of  words 
to  our  ideas,  considered  especially  in  the  nature 
and  use  of  synonyms.  We  saw,  also,  that  by 
studying  and  comparing  the  words  and  expres- 
sions of  a  people  we  may  gain  a  clear  view 
of  its  intellectual  range,  and  bring  forth  some 
of  its  most  notable  characteristics. 

Such  studies,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  are  not 
devoid  of  great  importance.  In  the  light  of 
these  theories,  a  dictionary  is  no  longer  a  dry 
record  of  signs  with  a  certain  meaning,  or,  as  it 
were,  a  herbarium  of  dead  leaves.  It  is  the  liv- 
ing record  of  the  intellectual  wealth  of  a  people  ; 
it  is  the  inventory  of  its  most  precious  treas- 
ures. 

Nor  must  we  omit  another  aspect  of  the  im- 
portance of  words.  They  not  only  are  the  ex- 
pression   of   our  thoughts,  but  they  react  on  us 


2l8  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

with  a  strength  that  is  appalHng.  Bacon 
once  remarked  that  men  think  they  rule  their 
words,  but  very  often  their  words  rule  them. 
Many  times  a  man  has  an  idea  in  his  mind, 
confused,  undetermined  ;  once  that  idea  comes 
forth,  clothed  with  apt  words,  its  power  is 
increased  a  thousand-fold.  For  good  and  for 
evil,  there  is  no  power  that  equals  the  power  of 
words.  When  a  social  or  political  crisis  is  im- 
pending, millions  are  brooding  over  the  evils 
they  suffer  or  they  think  they  suffer.  But  their 
ideas  are  confused,  uncentred  ;  they  feel  as  if 
they  were  in  the  dark,  groping  in  vain  for  an 
issue ;  they  feel  like  a  child  who  complains  of 
something  that  aches  him,  but  does  not  know 
what,  or  how.  But  let  a  man  step  forward  and 
formulate  in  clear  words  the  evil  that  troubles 
all,  and  shape  forth  their  needs  and  their  de- 
mands. That  man  becomes  the  hero,  the  leader : 
his  words  are  like  a  rocket  in  a  ton  of  gunpow- 
der. Every  man  now  sees  what  he  first  only  felt 
vaguely.  His  will  is  aroused,  his  resolution  is 
taken,  and,  whilst  a  little  while  ago  a  few  tempo- 
rary concessions  might  have  solaced  his  uneasi- 
ness and   stayed    any    outbreak,   now   nothing 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  219 

short  of  full  surrender  or  brutal  repression  could 
lead  him  back  to  his  former  condition. 

Not  only  in  that  part  of  our  life  in  which 
interest  mingles  with  feeling  do  words  lead 
us  even  against  or  beyond  our  intentions ; 
but,  also,  and  not  less,  in  the  most  abstract 
regions,  words  wield  a  power  that  is  difficult  to 
measure.  How  many  theories  of  science,  phi- 
losophy and  theology,  have  lived  through  gener- 
ations of  men,  making  some  happy  in  their 
faith,  sending  others  to  the  gallows  or  to  mar- 
tyrdom, and  all  the  while  resting  on  a  mere 
trick  of  words,  unskilfully  chosen  or  badly  un- 
derstood !  We  think  only  through  words,  and 
if  we  do  not  apprehend  the  full  reach  of  our 
and  other  people's  words,  we  must  needs  come 
to  conclusions  not  entirely  right.  "  The  words 
of  a  language  containing  a  synopsis  of  all  the 
principal  things  in  the  world,  with  a  list  of  their 
qualities,  agencies  and  effects,  the  distinctions 
drawn  by  them  are  unconsciously  adopted,  and 
necessarily  become  our  own  views  of  the  general 
arrangement  of  the  universe." — "  The  notions 
represented  by  them  are  constituent  portions 
of  our  intellectual  self ;  they  regulate  the  mo- 


220  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

mentary  operations  of  our  mind." — (Dr.  Abel, 
"  Linguistic  Essays,"  p.  150.)  It  is  impossible 
to  overrate  the  importance  of  words  in  this  re- 
spect. As  we  apprehend  the  whole  material 
and  spiritual  world  only  through  words,  it 
follows  that  the  more  exact  and  clear  and 
rich  our  dictionary  is,  the  better  instrument 
we  have  for  the  operations  of  our  mind. 
In  other  words,  our  mind,  in  its  progressive 
development,  works  on  the  language  and 
makes  it  finer  and  nobler  and  richer  while 
trying  to  convey  its  more  noble  and  fine  acqui- 
sitions. On  the  other  side,  the  language  helps 
the  mind  by  giving  it  an  instrument  of  expres- 
sion finer  and  more  perfect  than  ever.  Like- 
wise the  student  of  physics,  by  successive  ex- 
periments, improves  his  instruments  and  tools; 
these,  on  their  side,  help  him  along  to  further 
progress  by  giving  him  better  means  for  measur- 
ing, observing  and  testing. 

It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  in  all  these 
things  pertaining  to  language,  one  man  alone  can 
do  very  little.  Language,  from  beginning  to 
end,  is  a  social,  not  an  individual  produc- 
tion.    Language  is  perhaps  the  highest  type  of 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  221 

organization,  in  whose  making  and  use  every 
individual  takes  a  share  in  proportion  with  his 
mental  activity.  No  matter  what  sometimes 
a  single  man  may  do  for  good  or  for  evil  in  the 
social  or  political  field,  in  language  the  true  sov- 
ereignty rests  with  the  people.  Tiberius,  being 
reproached  for  using  a  solecism,  answered,  half 
playfully,  half  scornfully,  that  he  would  make 
it  right  with  an  imperial  decree.  "  Caesar," 
said  Marcellus,  the  grammarian,  "  thou  cans't 
give  the  Roman  citizenship  to  men,  but  not  to 
words." 

At  school  we  are  taught  to  avoid  some  words 
and  idioms,  and  to  use  some  others  in  a  way  a 
little  different  from  the  common  one,  which  is 
apt  to  be  loose  or  blundering.  All  of  which  is 
well.  Still  we  must  not  for  a  moment  indulge 
in  a  belief  that  such  correctings  and  forbid- 
dings  can  have  any  great  influence  on  the 
purity  and  beauty  of  a  language.  They  are  not 
unlike  fumigations,  which  may  be  useful  but  are 
never  able  to  check  the  spread  of  an  epidemic 
disease.  No  pestilence  can  be  checked  without 
a  thoroughly  hygienical  method  of  living, 
without  clean  dwellings,  pure  air,  wholesome 


222  THE  FORTUNES   OF    WORDS. 

food,  healthy  habits.  In  the  same  way,  it  is  not 
by  critical  sifting  and,  I  should  say,  behindhand 
pruning  that  we  can  stay  the  corruption  of  a 
language.  When  the  moral  and  intellectual 
level  of  a  people  sinks,  its  language  sinks  there- 
with. What  is  important  is  a  thorough  mental 
and  social  hygiene.  Let  a  people  be  inde- 
pendent, prosperous,  educated  and  generous; 
then  its  language  will  be  rich  and  varied  and 
powerful ;  its  words  and  idioms  will  fly  like 
winged  arrows,  hitting  the  mark  clear  and 
sharp,  bringing  forth  images  of  strength  and 
beauty.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  mass  of 
the  people  sink  down  into  degradation  and 
wretched  misery,  their  language  becomes  poor, 
slow,  coarse  and  dull.  Their  intellectual  life 
is  annihilated  ;  how  can  they  be  expected  to 
speak  aptly  neatly  and  richly  ? 

Nowhere  perhaps  can  we  find  better  evidence 
of  the  influence  of  the  political,  moral  and 
social  conditions  on  language  than  in  the 
Italian  history.  When  Italy  was  dotted 
with  prosperous  and  independent  common- 
wealths, no  nation  in  Europe  could  boast  of  a 
language  so  rich,  so  strong,  so  full  of  promise, 


THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  223 

SO  vigorous,  melodious  and  beautiful.  It  was 
Dante's  language.  When  the  thriving  com- 
monwealths were  succeeded  by  those  splendid 
principalities  where  little  by  little,  amid  the 
pomp  of  the  courts,  the  splendor  of  arts,  and 
the  luxury  of  life,  liberty  was  lulled  to  sleep, 
we  find  the  language  more  polished,  more  re- 
fined, but  lacking  some  of  its  Dantesque  energy 
and  honest  simplicity.  It  was  Ariosto's  lan- 
guage. Later, when  even  the  name  of  liberty  had 
been  suppressed,  when  the  national  tyrannies 
had  given  way  to  foreign  dominations,  and  the 
people  was  ground  down  to  the  most  abject  mis- 
ery, the  language  of  Italian  literature  became  of 
the  great  languages  of  Europe  the  most  empty, 
the  most  insipid,  flaccid  and  academic.  Since 
the  last  part  of  the  XVII Ith  and  more  espe- 
cially since  the  beginning  of  this  century,  when 
the  wonderful  movement  began  which  culmin- 
ated with  the  liberation  and  unification  of  Italy, 
a  visible  change  has  taken  place  in  her  lan- 
guage. Take  at  random  two  Italian  prose- 
writers,  one  of  the  XVI I  Ith  or  XVIIth  century 
and  one  of  our  days.  The  contrast  is  so  strik- 
ing  that    one    would    hardly   believe  it.     The 


2  24  THE  FORTUNES  OF    WORDS. 

present  language  of  Italian  literature  is  still 
somewhat  uncertain  and  uneven,  as  all  things 
that  arc  in  a  transitory  state.  But  there  is 
life  in  it ;  it  approaches  more  and  more  to  the 
living  language  of  the  people,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  after  a  few  generations  it  will  again 
resume  its  place  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
and  most  perfect  European  speeches. 

Language,  then,  is  inseparable  from  the  social 
and  political  fortunes  of  the  people.  Where  a 
very  small  minority  are  rich  and  idle,  and  the 
masses  are  ground  down  by  toil,  ignorance  and 
poverty,  we  must  have  on  one  side  an  artificial 
language,  disingenuous,  narrow  and  conven- 
tional— cant  more  than  language  ;  on  the  other 
side,  a  brutal,  low,  vulgar  jargon,  whose  differ- 
ence from  the  hothouse  language  of  the  upper 
classes  will  widen  daily.  Break  these  barriers, 
let  welfare  be  as  common  as  it  is  possible,  and 
the  level  of  public  education  will  rise,  the 
national  mind  will  improve,  the  language  will 
grow  by  the  co-operation  of  all,  rich  and  strong, 
the  mirror  of  the  mental  activities  of  all,  equally 
distant  from  the  superfetations  of  fashionable 
cant,  as  from  the  vulgarity  of  slang.    Let,  then, 


THE   FORTUNES  OF    WORDS.  225 

also  for  the  sake  of  language,  the  movements  be 
welcome  which  are  now  everywhere  abroad, 
tending  to  beat  down  sophisms  and  hoary  pre- 
judices, trying  to  diffuse  a  moderate  welfare 
among  the  greatest  number  possible.  Every 
step  taken  in  this  direction  will  be  recorded  in 
the  improvement  of  language. 


THE   END. 


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